That is a question I've had since 2003 when I first became unable to find work. After digging into the data for nearly 20 years now I've come to the conclusion that I cannot use the Department of Labor data because it is based off of samples, and polling and doesn't actually count the unemployed But there is one organization that counts every return and every penny which is the IRS, so we will use their databook reports to calculate job gains and losses. And we will limit the numbers to the 1040 filers as that would be people working for somebody.

Like I've Been Saying.

If you divide 11,900,000 jobs by 10 years, how many jobs do you get?

IRS

In 2020 we had 157,195,302 filing 1040 type forms and you can view that data by looking at Table 2 by clicking here.

In 1999 we had 125,227,000 filing 1040 type forms and you can view that data by looking at Table 2 by clicking here.

This is a 21 year period and we had a gain of 31,968,302 more tax filers which means we created an average of 1,522,300.10 new tax filers each year during that period.

OES

In 2020 we had 139,099,570 listed under all occupations and you can view that data by looking at 00-0000 by clicking here.

In 2016 we had 140,400,040 listed under all occupations and you can view that data by looking at 00-0000 by clicking here.

This is a 21 year period and we had a loss of -1,300,470 jobs which means we created an average of -61,927.14 jobs per year during that period.

I wanted to give you the ability to click on a link and view the data, but before 2016, there are only links to excel spreadsheets and I couldn't be sure you could view a spreadsheet

But this isn't enough data to see what has actually happened, so I'm going to include the 2000 total employed number which was 129,738,980

This would give us a gain of 9,360,590 or 468,029.50 jobs per year gained.

If you want to verify this data, you can click here to download that spreadsheet.

CPS