What it really takes to get unemployment down

Posted by Nin-Hai Tseng, reporter  CNNMoney.com

The harsh reality is that it will take tremendous growth in the GDP even to make a small dent in the unemployment rate. Despite some mildly good economic news this week including an uptick in retail sales for October, the US economy is likely still years away from seeing unemployment fall in any meaningful way.

In fact, the American economy appears to barely be able to keep joblessness from rising further. US unemployment has held steady at 9.6% since August. For the three months ending in September, GDP grew at annual rate of 2% -- still a bit short from the 3% minimum needed to solidly keep the jobless rate from trending up. But the economy needs to grow at more than double that rate -- 5% -- in order to shrink the unemployment rate by just one percentage point.

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