As I have said on enough occasions to earn the title of being a cracked record – the solution to mass unemployment is very simple – create enough jobs to satisfy the preferences for work of those who haven’t any. I attend a lot of meetings – here, there and everywhere – and listen to officials from governments and multilateral agencies say the same thing – “unemployment is a multifaceted, complex problem”. My response is always the same. No it isn’t. That sort of language – dissembling language – is just an excuse for saying that it doesn’t suit the dominant ideology to create the necessary jobs. Another simple fact is if the non-government sector cannot create the necessary jobs – well, ladies and gentlemen – there is only one other sector. Get over it. This blog reviews the latest release by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics of its – US JOLTS database – for December 2012. This data set sends some very clear and very simple messages about the causes of mass unemployment – and they all implicate the demand-side.