Job surge years off.

• Position: Your Life

While the politicians war over the number of jobs they expect to be created in the economy by November's election, the reality is that we probably will not see a true job market boom for another four years, indicates John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of the international outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Chicago, IlI Any job market rebound that takes place in the near future will be relatively small. Economic growth in the 1990s was an employment-led expansion. We are now in a productivity-led expansion.

It seems that companies spent so much on technology during the Y2K scare of a few years ago that they made themselves far more efficient. As a result, these employers do not need to rehire workers even as the economy improves. A report on productivity at the nation's 100 largest companies found that it now takes only nine workers to produce what 10 did in March, 2001. In a typical year during the 1970s and 1980s, productivity grew at about 1.5%. In 2002, it grew 5.4%. In the third quarter of 2003, it grew at an annual rate of 8.1%.

Economists have called the last two years a period of "jobless recovery." After the early 1990s recession, it took 15 months for job creation to return, and when it did, the results were...