Vanishing Jobs, Rising Unemployment

QueEx · Dec 18, 2008

<center>
Initial Jobless Claims Fell to 554,000 Last Week

U.S. Initial jobless claims dropped by 21,000 to 554,000
in the week that ended Dec. 13, from a revised 575,000
the prior week that was the highest since 1982</center>

Bloomberg
By Bob Willis
December 18, 2008

(Bloomberg) -- The number of Americans filing first-time claims for unemployment benefits held near a 26-year high, signaling the labor market is deteriorating as the economy heads into a second year of a recession.

Initial jobless claims dropped by 21,000 to 554,000 in the week that ended Dec. 13, from a revised 575,000 the prior week that was the highest since 1982, the Labor Department said today in Washington. The number of people staying on benefit rolls also slipped from an almost three-decade high.

The job market is deteriorating as consumers pull back on spending amid a credit crisis and a year-long recession that economists project will extend will into 2009. President-elect Barack Obama, who takes office Jan. 20, has pledged to enact a stimulus plan to save or create 2.5 million jobs.

“This is exactly the stage of the recession where businesses are aggressively cutting employment,” Mickey Levy, chief economist at Bank of America Corp. in New York, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. “I expect the pace of layoffs to continue.”

Treasuries rose, pushing yields lower. The benchmark 10- year note yielded 2.1 percent as of 8:40 a.m. in New York, down 10 basis points from yesterday and close to a record low. Stock- index futures were higher.

Jobless claims were projected to decline to 558,000 from the 573,000 initially reported the previous week, according to the median projection of 42 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. Estimates ranged from 530,000 to 600,000.

Post-Holiday Surge

Last week’s drop in initial claims followed a surge in claims the week immediately after Thanksgiving, which tends to be the busiest of the year for first-time filings, according to a Labor spokesman.

The report covers the week the Labor Department surveys businesses to calculate this month’s change in payroll employment.

U.S. employers eliminated 533,000 jobs in November, the most since 1974, and the unemployment rate increased to a 15- year high of 6.7 percent, the government said Dec. 5. The economy has lost 1.9 million jobs so far this year as payrolls dropped for 11 consecutive months.

The four-week moving average of initial claims, a less volatile measure, signals job losses intensified this month. The average rose to a 26-year high of 543,750 for the period ended Dec. 13 from 507,000 during November’s employment survey week, today’s report showed.

The unemployment rate among people eligible for benefits, which tends to track the jobless rate, held at 3.3 percent, a 16-year high. These data are reported with a one-week lag.

Breakdown

Forty-six states and territories reported an increase in new claims in the week ended Dec. 6, while six reported a decrease. The biggest increases were reported by North Carolina, reflecting firings at textile mills and furniture manufacturers, and California, where service industries pared staff.

Jobless claims reflect weekly firings and tend to rise as job growth -- measured by the monthly payroll report -- slows.

The number of applications for jobless benefits are likely to rise even more in the coming month. General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC will shutter about 59 factories over the next month as they struggle to adapt to the worst sales in 26 years and await a verdict on a U.S. rescue of the industry.

Chrysler Shutdown

Chrysler said yesterday it will shut all 30 of its plants for at least a month starting tomorrow, and Ford plans to idle nine of 15 North American assembly plants in the first week of January.

The economy entered a recession in December 2007, the National Bureau of Economic Research announced Dec. 1. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg this month forecast continued contraction in the first half of 2009 and an increase in the unemployment rate to 8.2 percent by the end of the year.

Obama may ask Congress next year to approve a stimulus plan of around $850 billion, according to a transition adviser. The amount would exceed initial estimates by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, as well as surpassing what some economists and the International Monetary Fund say is required.

The incoming administration believes the amount, about 6 percent of the U.S.’s $14 trillion economy, is needed to reverse rising unemployment, said the adviser, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Fed Decision

Noting that “labor-market conditions have deteriorated,” the Federal Reserve this week cut its key target rate to as low as zero from 1 percent and pledged to “employ all available tools” to restore growth in the flagging economy.

Financial services companies are joining manufacturers and construction firms in cutting staff as demand weakens and the credit crisis deepens.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. eliminated 2,500 jobs in the quarter ended Nov. 28 and slashed average pay per worker 45 percent to $363,654 as the firm posted the first quarterly loss since going public almost a decade ago, the company said yesterday.

Charles Schwab Corp., the second-largest independent brokerage by client assets, plans to cut more than 100 jobs as the drop in U.S. stocks lowers revenue next year, the San Francisco-based company said in a statement Dec. 15.

“We expect to see stiff headwinds from an unprecedented financial environment,” Chief Executive Officer Walter Bettinger said in the statement.

To contact the reporters on this story: Bob Willis in Washington at bwillis@bloomberg.net

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aSX_uSME3d5Y&refer=news

Imhotep · Dec 18, 2008

The caveat...............
5 Federal Careers Hiring at Record Pace

QueEx · Jan 9, 2009

<center>
New jobs numbers portray an economy
in near free fall

524 thousand jobs lost in December 2008

1.9 million jobs lost in the final four months of 2008

2.6 million total jobs lost in 2008

</center>


McClatchy Newspapers
By Kevin G. Hall
Friday, January 9, 2009

WASHINGTON — The U.S. recession gathered steam in December as employers shed another 524,000 jobs, the unemployment rate leapt half a percentage point to 7.2 percent, the length of the average workweek fell to a record low and job losses were spread widely across almost all sectors of the economy, the government said Friday.

December's unemployment rate was the highest since January 1993, and was up by much more than expected over November's rate of 6.7 percent, according to the Labor Department. The December job losses brought the full-year total to more than 2.6 million.

There was little to cheer in the report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Although the December job losses were just a touch higher than the consensus forecast, many analysts think that they'll be revised next month.

Several state employment offices saw their computer systems crash in December with the soaring number of people who were seeking jobless benefits, and this may have resulted in a number lower than it really is.

The Labor Department also revised its employment reports from October and November, noting that job losses in those months were worse than first reported. Employers rid themselves of 423,000 jobs in October, not the originally reported 320,000, and 584,000 positions in November, not the 533,000 first reported by the BLS.

While the steep jump in unemployment and mounting job losses grabbed the headlines, there was even more troubling news buried deeper down in the report. The BLS said that the average hourly workweek for production and nonsupervisory jobs had shrunk 0.2 percent to 33.3 hours. That marks the lowest that this number has registered since the government started compiling these statistics in 1964.

"The message in the decline in hours worked to a record low is that more big job losses are coming," said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Economy.com, a forecaster in West Chester, Pa. "Employers first cut their employees' hours and then their jobs if business doesn't quickly improve."

It's hard to see how business will improve anytime soon. The December jobs numbers point to an economy in near free fall, as the BLS said 1.9 million jobs had been lost in the final four months of 2008. In all, 11.1 million Americans are thought to be unemployed.

"In December, job losses were large and widespread across most major industry sectors," the BLS employment report said.

Manufacturers shed 149,000 jobs in December and 791,000 for all of last year. The biggest manufacturing losers were metal-makers and companies that make cars and car parts. Construction fell by 101,000 jobs in December and by 899,000 since its peak in September 2006.

Retailers dropped 67,000 positions in December and 522,000 last year, more than half of those jobs lost in the last four months of 2008. Warehousing and transport employment fell by 24,000 jobs in December, while the information industry lost 20,000 positions. Food services fell by 20,000 last month.

Only health care showed robust growth, adding 32,000 jobs in December and 372,000 positions last year. "The decline in jobs across so many industries and occupations is disturbing. There is no safe place in the job market," Zandi said.

In another troubling indicator, the number of involuntary part-time workers, those who want to work full time but can't find such jobs, rose to 8 million in December and increased by 3.4 million for all of last year.

Additionally, the number of long-term unemployed — jobless for 27 weeks or more — rose to 2.6 million in December and increased by 1.3 million for all of 2008. This number essentially doubled as many of the unemployed remained that way for much of the year.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/59365.html

QueEx · Jan 31, 2009

<center>
Job cuts exceed 100,000 for the week

U.S. job losses continued to mount this week, with Pfizer,
Caterpillar and Boeing reporting massive reductions;
Monday's total alone was more than 70,000 losses.</center>

By Aaron Smith
CNNMoney.com staff writer
January 30, 2009

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- In a brutal week for the job market, an assortment of companies across various industries announced more than 100,000 job cuts.

The bulk of the job loss news occurred on Monday, when several major U.S. companies announced sweeping job cuts, pushing the day's total to more than 70,000.

"The picture is still pretty glum out there," said David Wyss, chief economist for Standard & Poor's, noting that January is often a bad month for the job market, because companies want to include the reductions in their annual tax returns.

Pfizer (PFE, Fortune 500), the leading drugmaker in terms of annual pharma sales, and Caterpillar (CAT, Fortune 500), a heavy equipment manufacturer based in Peoria, Ill., each said they would cut 20,000 jobs. These are the biggest reported eliminations among U.S.-based companies.

New York-based Pfizer said the cost-saving restructuring would occur before and after its merger with Wyeth (WYE, Fortune 500), to be completed later this year.

Caterpillar Chief Executive Jim Owens blamed the "rapidly deteriorating global economy" in his quarterly earnings report. Later, on Friday, Caterpillar added another 2,110 job cuts to its previously announced reductions, bringing its tally to more than 22,000.

Boeing (BA, Fortune 500) announced its massive layoffs on Wednesday. The Chicago-based airplane manufacturer said 10,000 workers, including 4,500 previously announced reductions, would lose their jobs. The company blamed this on dwindling demand for its aircraft.

Chico's (CHS), a retailer of women's clothing based in Fort Myers, Fla., said on Friday that it was cutting 180 positions. The retail industry has been hard-hit in recent months by a slow-down in consumer spending, partly because so many people have lost their jobs.

Also on Friday, the newspaper publisher A.H. Belo (AHC) said it was cutting 500 jobs. Chief Executive Robert Decherd, in a letter to colleagues, blamed the "rapid deterioration in the U.S. economy."

The U.S. economy lost 2.6 million jobs in 2008, according to government reports. This includes 21,137 mass layoffs, a seven-year high. In a mass layoff, 50 or more workers are laid off at a time.

2009 job loss tally

The job market isn't expected to get any better any time soon. The Council Board forecast two million job losses for 2009.

"[The job losses] are going to continue until sales stabilize and that might not become apparent until the summer," said Moody's chief economist John Lonski. "There's every reason to believe that the magnitude of job destruction will rise yet again in February and March."

Not everyone agrees that job losses will continue at their current pace. Robert Brusca, chief economist at Fact and Opinion Economics, said that "when the pace of the loss is this severe, the period of severity isn't very long." He said companies might be overzealous in reporting their eliminations, lessening the need for further cuts down the road.

While opinions differ about the severity of cuts, nobody's talking about job growth for the foreseeable future.

"There's no reason to anticipate a hiring frenzy any time soon," said Rich Yamarone, director of economic research at Argus Research, in an email to CNNMoney.com. "Labor usually accounts for about 75% of a company's costs, and if the outlook remains bleak, they slash jobs. There is no reason to believe this trend will stop any time soon."

http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/30/news/economy/job_loss_roundup/index.htm?postversion=2009013014

QueEx · Feb 6, 2009

<center>
598,000 Jobs Lost in January 2009
as Unemployment Rate Hits 7.6% 
3.1 million jobs lost since January 2008</center>

Reuters
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
Published: February 6, 2009

WASHINGTON — The country moved into its second year of uninterrupted job losses last month, with companies shedding another 598,000 jobs and the unemployment rate moving up to 7.6 percent, the Labor Department reported on Friday.

Economists had forecast a loss of 540,000 jobs and a unemployment rate of 7.5 percent.

Job losses were once again spread across both manufacturing and services industries, reinforcing the picture of an economy that is contracting at its fastest pace in decades.

Employers in the United States have shed jobs every month since January 2008, for an aggregate decline in payroll employment of 3.1 million.

Although the United States officially slipped into a recession in December 2007, the decline was erratic and temporarily disguised by the impact of the emergency tax-rebate last spring. But since September, analysts say, economic activity has plunged on almost every front. Consumer spending started to decline in the summer, an extremely rare event in the United States, even in recession, and by September, almost every economic indicator had fallen dramatically.

For the last several months, analysts said, the United States has increasingly been trapped in a vicious circle of slumping consumer demand, falling business investment, mounting losses in the banking system, and rising unemployment, which was 7.2 percent in December.

As a result, the monthly pace of job losses shot up to about 500,000 a month for the last three months of 2008. Economists see no hint that the bottom has been reached.

Most economic forecasters had been expecting a loss of roughly 500,000 jobs in January, at least as bad as in December, because other indicators of the job market had been trending down as well. Last week, the number of Americans filing first-time jobless claims reached a 26-year high, 626,000 filled out initial applications.

Major retailers, rocked by one of the worst holiday shopping seasons in memory, have been shutting stores and laying of armies of workers in recent weeks. On Thursday, the nation’s retailers reported that sales fell 1.6 percent in January, the fourth consecutive month of steep sales declines.

And in sign that the country’s slowdown continues to reach beyond its borders, Canada, America’s largest trading partner, reported Friday that its unemployment rate jumped to 7.2 percent in January, from 6.7 percent in December.

In Washington, Friday’s gloomy job report put more pressure on Congress to pass an economic stimulus bill. The House passed a bill last week that would provide more than $800 billion in spending and tax cuts. In the Senate, still bogged down by objections from Republicans, lawmakers were hoping to be able to muster enough votes to pass a measure on Friday

For comparison, the unemployment rate was 4.9 percent in January 2008. But some analysts contend that the current unemployment rate understates the labor market’s problems because the percentage of adults participating in the labor force has slumped in recent years, and those people are not listed as “unemployed.”

Peter Morici, an economist at the University of Maryland, estimated that if the labor force participation rate today was as high as it was when President Bush took office, the unemployment rate would be 9.4 percent.

Ian Shepherdson, chief North American economist for High Frequency Economics in Valhalla, N.Y., said the government had become the only source of energy left to break the cycle of slumping demand for goods and falling production.

“The public sector needs to act,” Mr. Shepherdson wrote in a note to clients. “It needs to prevent an endless spiral of attempts to increase saving, leading to reduced spending, leading to reduced incomes, leading to further attempts to raise savings, and so on.”

“We remain firmly of the view that the package now in Congress is the bare minimum required to slow the shrinkage of the economy over the next year.”

Many economists expect that the economy will continue to contract until July at the very least, but at a slowing pace in the second quarter. That would make it the longest recession since the 1930s, outlasting the two record-holders, the mid-1970s and early 1980s downturns. Each of these recessions lasted 16 months. The current recession, which started in December 2007, would reach that milestone in April.

The Federal Reserve continues to pump money into the financial system at a furious pace. Since September, the central bank has more than doubled its reserves, from $900 billion to more than $2 trillion, by literally creating new money.

The Fed has used some of that money to help bail out financial institutions, from Citigroup and Bank of America to the American International Group.

It has been pumping hundreds of billions of dollars into new lending programs, stepping in for banks and other financial institutions to buy up a widening array of corporate debt. Later this month, the Fed will begin a $200 billion program, in conjunction with the Treasury, to finance consumer debt ranging from car loans and credit card debt to student loans.

But analysts say that the big problem is not a shortage of money, but a shortage of demand for products by businesses and consumers. As a result, banks are overloaded with excess reserves, made available by the Fed, which they are often simply parking at the Fed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/07/business/economy/07jobs.html?ref=business

keysersoze · Feb 6, 2009

I think we should also start looking at "under employment" as well as unemployment.

While it sucks to lose your job - no one wants to go get a Masters degree and then realize they are stuck in the same job/career they would have gotten with just a bachelors degree.

AristotlesOwn · Feb 6, 2009

Greed said:
Get rid of welfare, minimum wage laws, and unemployment insurance then you'll get an increase in employment.

As Gershwin wrote in Porgy and Bess "It ain't necessarily so."

A lot of what you're saying has validity...to a point, but there are moral implications that you aren't discussing. You're using the 'bootstraps' argument, a very Darwinian approach, but not everyone is capable because they do not have the means. If there aren't enough jobs to satisfy the demand, those at the bottom will be forced out of even minimum wage jobs in favor of someone with more skills or someone with more education. Some people may do as you say and choose whatever employment they can find over starvation, but there are also those who will unfortunately be pushed into homelessness because they don't have even basic skills. There are only so many sanitation and food service positions to go around. Many of the poor and under edcuated are not going to go work at McDonald's when people who have been laid off with greater skills are looking for these same bare minimum jobs.

I say this because I'm experiencing it right now. I'm well educated, but I got laid off from a great job in NYC because of this fucked up economy and the "last in first out" rule of the corporate world. Now I'm back in Pittsburgh working 2 part time jobs that I know are well below my level that someone else should really be working...but the difference are my degrees.

TheDynasty · Feb 7, 2009

Had the Fed not intervened in 2001 and let the economy go into the necessary "purges" of a recession we would not be is such a HORRIBLE position.

QueEx · Mar 6, 2009

gene cisco · Mar 6, 2009

I still feel if people aren't medically sick things aint that bad. As long as you got your health you can get money, just my opinion.

QueEx · Apr 3, 2009

<center>
Ray of hope in bad job numbers:
crisis may be flattening out

Employers shed 663,000 jobs in March, pushing total U.S. jobs
lost in this recession above 5 million and the unemployment
rate up four-tenths of a percentage point to 8.5 percent</center>

McClatchy Newspapers
By Kevin G. Hall
Friday, April 3, 2009

WASHINGTON — A fifth consecutive monthly report showing steep job losses served as a grim reminder Friday of how bad things are in the U.S. economy, but also offered a glimpse of hope that the worst may soon be over.

Employers shed 663,000 jobs in March, pushing total U.S. jobs lost in this recession above 5 million and the unemployment rate up four-tenths of a percentage point to 8.5 percent, the Labor Department reported Friday.

While steep, the March job losses were consistent with what mainstream economic forecasts had suggested, providing a measure of relief that things aren't worse

than expected. That, and the fact that February's job losses weren't revised downward, as previous months' reports had been, suggested that layoffs may be flattening out.

"I think that after months and months of getting worse-than-expected news, our expectations are in line now with where the economy is. As hard as it is to believe, it is a sign that things are getting better," said Mark Vitner, senior economist with Wachovia. "We think the worst may be behind us. Job losses are going to remain very large for the next few months, but they should begin to moderate."

One reason for optimism amid the gloom is that other indicators point to improvement, even if full-scale economic recovery remains distant. These include better-than-expected news on February orders of durable goods, which are big-ticket expenditures; stable retail-sales numbers; falling mortgage rates; a 20 percent gain in the stock market over the past month; and a steep drop in volatility in credit markets.

The scattered indicators are rays of light that have been missing since at least last September. Until the past few weeks, Vitner noted, the news was all bad.

That's not to minimize the pain that's still being felt.

"For the second month in a row, the headline employment decline didn't meet the worst fears, but this is still a very weak report," Nigel Gault, the chief U.S. economist for forecaster IHS Global Insight, wrote in a research note to investors. "The latest figures show job losses of 650,000 or above for each of the last four months."

Since jobs are a lagging indicator, the struggling U.S. economy will continue to shed them even after a turnaround has begun. Many economists think that the unemployment rate could top 10 percent this year, even if economic conditions begin to improve, as some indicators are starting to suggest.

"Since the recession began in December 2007, 5.1 million jobs have been lost, with almost two-thirds (3.3 million) of the decrease occurring in the last five months," the Bureau of Labor Statistics said. "In March, job losses were large and widespread across the major industry sectors."

Although it left its February job-loss estimate intact at 651,000, the BLS revised January's initial estimate of 655,000 to 741,000, well above March's 663,000 lost jobs.

Manufacturers trimmed another 161,000 jobs in March; factory employment has fallen by 1 million over the past six months, the BLS said.

Construction, both residential and commercial, remains in the dumps, and builders axed another 126,000 jobs last month. The new twist is that commercial construction is beginning to suffer just as residential construction was hit last year.

"Unlike previous periods in this economic cycle, the bulk of job losses for the first quarter of 2009 were in the nonresidential sector as opposed to the residential sector," wrote Anirban Basu, the chief economist for Associated Builders and Contractors, an industry group. "This suggests that the residential construction sector is much closer to its bottom than is the nonresidential construction sector, which is a relative newcomer to the ongoing downturn."

The government's economic-stimulus spending should begin to ease some of the pain in the construction sector by spurring infrastructure projects by late this year, Basu said in an analysis of the March job numbers.

Employment in professional and business services ranked not far behind manufacturing in lost jobs, falling by 133,000 last month. More than half those losses came in temporary help services.

The BLS report highlighted this troublesome trend affecting temp workers.

"Among the unemployed, the number of job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs increased by 547,000 to 8.2 million in March. This group has nearly doubled in size over the past 12 months," the agency said.

Elsewhere in the report, statisticians noted that the number of people who are working part time for economic reasons — sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers — climbed by 423,000 in March to 9.0 million.

In a series of measures of underutilization of the labor force — called the U-series — the BLS statisticians determined that 15.6 percent of people in the U.S. work force now are unemployed, working part-time because they can't find full-time work or are marginally attached to the work force, meaning that they're not looking for jobs but are available to work. That's up by 3 percentage points since November.

Retail trade employment fell by 48,000 last month, while the financial services sector shed another 43,000 jobs. Leisure and hospitality lost another 40,000 jobs, while transportation and warehousing lost 34,000.

The federal government and the Federal Reserve have taken a number of steps, from stimulus spending to lowering borrowing costs and mortgage rates, that should revive the troubled economy eventually.

"As best we can tell, so far the programs are having the intended effect. For example, 30-year fixed mortgage rates . . . have declined 1 percentage point to 1 { percentage points since . . . November," Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke said in a speech Friday. "Over time, lower mortgage rates should help to improve conditions in the housing market, whose persistent weakness has had a major impact on economic and financial conditions more broadly, and will improve the financial condition of some households by facilitating refinancing."

Most economists expect a turnaround by late this year, and a smaller number expect a sharp rebound.

"By year end, growth should be positive again, perhaps as strong as 4 percent (annual rate). Large pools of 'pent-up demand' are forming and will soon begin to be transformed into actual spending," William Dunkelberg, the chief economist for the National Federation of Independent Business, a group composed of small businesses, wrote Friday.

Americans are enjoying an "oil tax cut," he said, pointing to the steep drop in fuel prices.

Businesses large and small have liquidated inventories and reduced spending. Once the first signs of economic revival appear, businesses will increase orders, and the negative cycle of declining jobs leading to less spending leading to fewer jobs will reverse into a positive cycle. Rising sales will lead to rising employment, leading to more sales and more employment.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/65452.html

QueEx · Apr 3, 2009

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nittie · Apr 3, 2009

Originally Posted by nittie
Normally govt doesn't create jobs but this is one time when it can. All govt has to do is use the bailout money to shore-up Social Secuirty and Medicare. They could then lower the retirement age to say 58, people leaving the workforce would replace the jobs lost this year. Obama could then streamline his jobs proposal and gear it towards getting young people off the streets and into the workforce. In order to do that Washington would have to be stripped of the privileged, those people who have been there for years basically running the country into the ground.

Inside Obama's bank CEOs meeting
Politico

The bankers struggled to make themselves clear to the president of the United States.

Arrayed around a long mahogany table in the White House state dining room last week, the CEOs of the most powerful financial institutions in the world offered several explanations for paying high salaries to their employees — and, by extension, to themselves.

“These are complicated companies,” one CEO said. Offered another: “We’re competing for talent on an international market.”

But President Barack Obama wasn’t in a mood to hear them out. He stopped the conversation and offered a blunt reminder of the public’s reaction to such explanations. “Be careful how you make those statements, gentlemen. The public isn’t buying that.”

“My administration,” the president added, “is the only thing between you and the pitchforks.”

The fresh details of the meeting — some never before revealed — come from an account provided to POLITICO by one of the participants. A second source inside the meeting confirmed the details, and two other sources familiar with the meeting offered additional information.

If people are going to make a stand, now is the time. The elites are scared, they know they went too far.

QueEx · May 8, 2009

<center>
U.S. Job Losses Slowed
as Economy Began to Stabilize 

Payrolls fell by 539,000, after a 699,000 loss in March;
the jobless rate still jumped to 8.9 percent, the highest
since September 1983, and probably won’t start
retreating until an economic recovery is secured</center>

Bloomberg
By Shobhana Chandra
May 8, 2009

(Bloomberg) -- Employers cut fewer jobs in April as signs emerged that the worst of the U.S. recession had passed and hiring for the next census boosted government staffing by the most since 2001.

Payrolls fell by 539,000, after a 699,000 loss in March, the Labor Department said today in Washington. The jobless rate still jumped to 8.9 percent, the highest since September 1983, and probably won’t start retreating until an economic recovery is secured.

DuPont Co. and Microsoft Corp. this week said more staff reductions may be necessary. The worst jobs slump in the postwar era and the accompanying loss of wages will temper an economic recovery should one take hold in the second half of the year.

“The labor market is still incredibly weak, albeit not quite as weak as before,” James O’Sullivan, a senior economist at UBS Securities LLC in Stamford, Connecticut, said before the report. “Even when we see smaller declines, it doesn’t necessarily mean the labor market is strong. We’ve got a long way to go.”

Stock-index futures, which had risen earlier in the day, remained higher, while Treasuries gained. Standard & Poor’s 500 Stock Index futures were up 1.4 percent at 920.00 at 8:33 a.m. in New York, and yields on benchmark 10-year notes fell to 3.30 percent from 3.34 percent.

Deeper Losses

Revisions subtracted 66,000 from payroll figures previously reported for March and February.

One bright spot was government, with public payrolls rising by 72,000 after falling by 6,000. The U.S. Census Bureau began hiring 140,000 temporary workers last month to start conducting the population count that happens once every 10 years. It will hire more than 1.4 million people over the next year.

Payrolls were forecast to drop 600,000 after a 663,000 decrease initially reported for March, according to the median of 70 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. Estimates ranged from losses of 360,000 to 750,000.

The jobless rate was projected to jump to 8.9 percent from 8.5 percent. Forecasts ranged from 8.6 percent to 9.1 percent.

Since the recession started in December 2007, the world’s largest economy has lost 5.7 million jobs, the most of any economic slump since the Great Depression.

Factory Jobs

Today’s report showed factory payrolls fell by 149,000 after decreasing by 167,000 in the prior month. Economists forecast a drop of 155,000. The decline included a drop of 29,100 jobs in auto manufacturing and parts industries.

Payrolls at builders fell 110,000 after decreasing 135,000. Financial firms decreased payrolls by 40,000, after a 43,000 drop the prior month.

Service industries, which include banks, insurance companies, restaurants and retailers, subtracted 269,000 workers after falling 381,000. Retail payrolls decreased by 46,700 after a 63,900 decline.

The jobless rate may rise to 9.5 percent by year-end, economists projected in an April Bloomberg survey. Tests run by the government to determine whether 19 of the largest U.S. banks had enough capital to withstand deterioration in the economy used an “adverse scenario” that included an average unemployment rate of 8.9 percent in 2009 and 10.3 percent next year.

‘More Adverse’

The results, issued yesterday, showed 10 banks needed to raise a total of $74.6 billion in capital and that losses under “more adverse” economic conditions than most economists anticipate could total $599.2 billion over two years. Mortgage losses present the biggest part of the risk, at $185.5 billion.

“We are likely to see further sizable job losses and increased unemployment in coming months,” Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said in testimony to lawmakers this week. Still, policy makers “expect economic activity to bottom out, then to turn up later this year.”

Automakers are among the hardest hit industries. Vehicles sold at a 9.3 million annual pace in April, less than forecast and down from a 9.9 million pace a month earlier, industry figures showed last week.

More job cuts may be in train. Chrysler LLC was pushed into bankruptcy by the government last week, and General Motors Corp., surviving on U.S. loans, is working to beat a June 1 bankruptcy deadline.

Spending Impact

Job losses threaten to restrain consumer spending after a first-quarter rebound. Americans will probably retrench again this quarter before spending shows sustained gains in the second half of 2009, according to economists surveyed last month.

DuPont, the third-biggest U.S. chemical maker, plans to eliminate an additional 2,000 positions, while Microsoft, the world’s largest software maker, may reduce staff further even as it is completing most of its 5,000 job cuts faster than planned.

“We will continue to closely monitor the impact of the economic downturn,” Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer said in a e-mail to staff obtained by Bloomberg News. Redmond, Washington-based Microsoft will, “if necessary, take further actions on our cost structure including additional job eliminations.”

Some companies are trying to cut costs in other ways. The Boston Globe, a 137-year-old newspaper owned by New York Times Co., this week reached a tentative deal with its largest union on pay cuts, while PC Mall Inc., an Internet retailer of personal computers, began an employee furlough program for 2009.

Today’s report also showed the average work week held at 33.2 hours in April. Average weekly hours worked by production workers rose to 39.6 hours from 39.4 hours, while overtime increased to 2.7 hours from 2.6 hours. That brought the average weekly earnings up to $614.53 from $614.20.

Workers’ average hourly wages were little changed at $18.51 from the prior month. Hourly earnings were 3.2 percent higher than April 2008. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had forecast a 0.2 percent increase from the prior month and a 3.3 percent gain for the 12-month period.

To contact the reporter on this story: Shobhana Chandra in Washington schandra1@bloomberg.net

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a5ilJ0.p99WA&refer=home

thoughtone · May 8, 2009

Elizabeth Warren, a possible Supreme Court Nominee. Pay attention toward the end. "...those 3 rules (those dreaded, evil regulations) bought us 50 years of security and prosperity'.

thoughtone · May 8, 2009

39,000 people still lost their jobs. And we haven't even seen what the Chrysler and GM deadlines will have on the numbers. Signs that the pace of unemployment is slowing. This talking up of the economy reminds of "the economy is fundamentally sound." You are not going to build long term good paying, employment growth if the main tenet in the current business zeitgeist is profit by sending labor to the lowest bider.

Andeyhollawho · May 8, 2009

Just because the number of people being unemployed every month is slowing down there isn't an equivialent bump to new jobs and employment to offset the record amounts of unemployed people. :smh:

thoughtone · May 8, 2009

Andeyhollawho said:
Just because the number of people being unemployed every month is slowing down there isn't an equivialent bump to new jobs and employment to offset the record amounts of unemployed people.

Logic huh! The so called (liberal :lol:

) main stream media thinks were stupid. But when the stocks rise to some illogical level, all is good.

QueEx · Jul 3, 2009

<center>
Job losses rise in June, ending
4 months of improvement

Employers shed 467,000 jobs in June and the unemployment
rate rose another tenth of a percentage point
to a 26-year high of 9.5 percent</center>

McClatchy Newspapers
By Kevin G. Hall
Thursday, July 2, 2009

WASHINGTON — Worse-than-expected unemployment numbers and an uptick in the jobless rate renewed fears Thursday that the U.S. economy remains very fragile and recovery is elusive.

"The economy is moving in the right direction, but painfully slowly," said Mark Zandi, the chief economist for forecaster Moody's Economy.com in West Chester, Pa.

Employers shed 467,000 jobs in June and the unemployment rate rose another tenth of a percentage point to a 26-year high of 9.5 percent, the Labor Department reported. Mainstream economic forecasts had projected job losses of around 350,000_ about the same as May's initial reading — so the June report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics dampened hopes that the U.S. economy was getting back on its feet. June broke a four-month streak of improving employment reports.

"Job losses were widespread across the major industry sectors, with large declines occurring in manufacturing, professional and business services, and construction," the BLS said Thursday in its monthly Employment Situation Summary.

As if Americans needed the grim reminder, the BLS said that since the recession began in December 2007 "the number of unemployed persons has increased by 7.2 million, and the unemployment rate has risen by 4.6 percentage points."

The Economic Policy Institute, a liberal research organization, said that Thursday's jobs report marked a grim watershed event. The entire growth in jobs over the last nine years now has been wiped out; the economy has fewer jobs than it had in May 2000, the institute said. The labor force, however, has grown by 12.5 million workers since then.

"This is the only recession since the Great Depression to wipe out all jobs growth from the previous business cycle, a devastating benchmark for the workers of this country and a testament to both the enormity of the current crisis and to the extreme weakness of jobs growth from 2000 to 2007," Heidi Shierholz, an economist with the institute, wrote in an analysis of the jobs report.

Wall Street frowned on the surprise. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed off 233.32 points at 8280.74. The S&P 500 was down 26.91 points to 896.42, and the Nasdaq lost 49.20 points at 1796.52.

Adding to the sense of gloom in Thursday's report, BLS statisticians confirmed that average hourly pay was flat in June and average weekly pay fell 1.85 percent. The average workweek for most workers fell by a tenth of a percentage point to 33 hours, the lowest level since authorities began keeping records in 1964.

Average earnings and hours worked are important harbingers of economic activity. Consumption drives about two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, and workers who work less and earn less tend to spend less, too.

These trends argue against the impression that the economy is on the verge of recovering.

"A significant threat to this script is the stalling out of wage growth. If wages begin falling, debt loads will grow heavier, resulting in more defaults and renewed problems for the financial system," Zandi said. "Policymakers must remain very aggressive in ensuring this doesn't happen."

Thursday's numbers point to a long slog back for the economy.

"With jobs rapidly plummeting, we can anticipate further job erosion. With wage growth essentially nil for two months, we can anticipate a weak recovery," said Larry Mishel, who heads the Economic Policy Institute. "Unfortunately, this administration was thrown into an abyss not fully anticipated and now must confront this employment crisis."

Alan Levenson, the chief economist for investment manager T. Rowe Price, warned in a research note that "flat wages point up risks that recovery stalls."

Although June's numbers were worse than expected, the trend in recent months still points to moderating job losses. From April through June, the monthly average job losses were 436,000, an improvement from the monthly average from November through March of 670,000.

"This is still a diminution, but obviously we wish it had been better," Christina Romer, the head of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said on CNBC television, adding later that "my hope and expectation is that we go back to that pattern."

BLS statisticians also revised the April and May reports, saying that layoffs in May were smaller than first thought: 322,000, rather than the reported 345,000. For April, however, the job cuts were deeper: 519,000, instead of the 504,000 initially reported.

Leading the job-losing sectors in June was manufacturing, which shed 136,000 jobs. Construction companies trimmed another 79,000 positions. In a bad harbinger for housing, the business and professional services sector, which comprises white-collar workers who are more likely than not to be homeowners, lost 118,000 positions. Retailers axed another 21,000 jobs, while education and leisure and hospitality slimmed down by 18,000 posts. In a surprise, government employment fell by 52,000, and the only sector with a net addition of jobs was education and health services at 34,000.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/71173.html

QueEx · Jul 3, 2009

633-20090702_Unemployment.large.prod_affiliate.91.jpg

QueEx · Aug 8, 2009

<center>
When down is up: Jobs report sparks
hope recession's over

Employers shed 247,000 jobs in July, the Labor Department said
Friday, highlighting the best monthly performance since last
August. In a separate measure, the agency reported
that the nation’s unemployment rate fell to 9.4
percent from 9.5 percent, the first drop
since April 2008. </center>

McClatchy Newspapers
By Kevin G. Hall
August 7, 2009

WASHINGTON — A better-than-expected government jobs report Friday strengthened the growing consensus that the worst economic downturn in generations is nearing an end, and may even have ended already.

Economists warned, however, that there’s a long way to go before job growth rebounds along with the slowly expanding economy.

Employers shed 247,000 jobs in July, the Labor Department said Friday, highlighting the best monthly performance since last August. In a separate measure, the agency reported that the nation’s unemployment rate fell to 9.4 percent from 9.5 percent, the first drop since April 2008.

In another bright sign, Labor statisticians revised earlier reports to show that job losses in the previous two months weren't as bad as initially had been estimated. Losses in May and June were revised to 303,000 and 443,000, respectively, from 322,000 and 467,000.

Forecasters had expected about 320,000 lost jobs in July and an uptick in the unemployment rate. After last week’s report of a smaller-than-expected economic

contraction at a 1 percent annual rate from April through June, Friday’s numbers raised hopes that the recession is ending.

“It’s Over,” said the title of a research report Friday from Barclays Capital Research, a division of the large British investment bank. It concluded that “June is likely to have been the last month of the U.S. recession.”

The forecasting group RDQ Economics in New York agreed. “The case that the recession ended in June continues to grow with this report,” it said in a note to investors.

Other economists voiced more shaded degrees of enthusiasm.

“The economy is still shedding jobs, but the pace of decline is slowing, consistent with the view that output has hit bottom and growth is now resuming,” Nigel Gault, the chief U.S. economist for forecaster IHS Global Insight, wrote in a research note.

Mark Zandi, the chief economist for Moody’s Economy.com, added that “the job market remains very bad, but the trend lines are good. These trend lines include smaller monthly job losses, upward revisions to previous job losses and the increase in hours worked per week.”

Government stimulus and Federal Reserve policies helped to end the recession and “the downturn will be called officially over in the third quarter,” Zandi said.

President Barack Obama voiced cautious optimism: “Today we’re pointed in the right direction. We’re losing jobs at less than half the rate we were when I took office. We pulled the financial system back from the brink,” he said in the White House Rose Garden.

Stocks, whose price trends often anticipate the economy months in advance, have rallied since March, adding to the feeling that the worst is over.

Among other recent positive economic signs: New home sales are rising sharply. The almost three-year decline in housing prices has leveled off in many markets. Vehicle sales are booming, thanks largely to the federal “cash-for-clunkers” subsidy program, which Congress renewed this week. Businesses have cut inventories to the bone across the economy, requiring them to restock — and producers to crank up production.

On the other hand, a downturn in commercial construction will continue to drag against recovery.

“Many nonresidential construction activities tend to lag behind broader economic cycles, including commercial/office construction,” cautioned Anirban Basu, the chief economist for the Associated Builders and Contractors, a trade group for builders. “However, the impacts of the stimulus package passed in February should become significantly clearer during the next six to 12 months, and this will help nonresidential construction employment stabilize during that period.”

Friday’s job numbers help support the Obama administration’s claim that the $787 billion fiscal stimulus effort is helping the economy recover.

“The pace of job losses over the last three months, 314,000, are less than half that of the prior three months, over 600,000, for only one reason: the stimulus package’s impact on personal incomes and state and local spending,” said Lawrence Mishel, the president of the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal policy-research group. “Obviously, we are not out of the woods yet and must confront continued job losses and a sluggish recovery.”

Despite July’s dip in the unemployment rate, analysts said it still was likely to climb later this year.

“The unemployment rate fell, but it is hard to believe that it has peaked already. Unemployment fell this month because the labor force fell faster than employment. Some prospective workers have just given up looking,” said Gault of IHS Global Insight. “We will need to see sustained employment gains before concluding that unemployment has peaked, and that probably won't be until the first half of 2010, with unemployment above 10 percent. But today's report brought the light at the end of the tunnel a bit closer.”

Grim signs of recession still abound, however, ranging from depressed consumer confidence to poor retail sales and a dip in a closely watched manufacturing index after months of improvement.

Friday's Bureau of Labor Statistics report also offered a sober reminder that even if things are getting better, they’re still bad. The average length of unemployment is now 25.1 weeks, the highest level in the 61 years these records have been kept.

“For a self-sustaining expansion to begin … businesses have to go from curtailing their layoffs to hiring. We are probably a year away from that, and it may require more help from policymakers,” Zandi said.

The number of Americans who've been unemployed for six months or more rose to almost 5 million in July, a record. They're one-third of all the jobless.

“There are substantial numbers of people who have exhausted their unemployment benefits,” said Diana Furchtgott-Roth, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, a conservative policy-research center. JULY UNEMPLOYMENT BY SECTOR:

_ Construction, down 76,000.

_ Manufacturing, down 52,000.

_ Retail, down 44,000.

_ Professional and business services, down 38,000.

_ Transportation and warehousing, down 22,000.

_ Financial services, down 13,000.

_ Health care, up 20,000. _ Government, up 7,000.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/73254.html

QueEx · Aug 8, 2009

QueEx · Sep 5, 2009

<center>
Jobless rate hits 26-year high,
even as job losses slow</center>

20090904_Unemployment.large.prod_affiliate.91.jpg

McClatchy Newspapers
By Kevin G. Hall
Friday, September 4, 2009

WASHINGTON — Another important sign of a firming economic recovery emerged Friday from government statistics showing a slowdown in the torrid pace of job losses, even as a larger-than-expected rise in the unemployment rate to 9.7 percent signaled a long road ahead before Americans feel a return to normalcy.

Employers shed 216,000 jobs in August, a significant slowdown from the revised 276,000 jobs lost in July. Following a key manufacturing index showing growth for the first time in 18 months and recent signs that the housing market is firming, Friday's job numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics are one more indication that the U.S. economy appears to have hit bottom and is beginning to rebound.

However, the still-rising unemployment rate — up from 9.4 percent in July to the highest rate in more than 26 years — will continue to dampen consumer confidence and business hiring.

"The job market is on the mend, but has a long painful recovery ahead of it. Businesses are scaling back their layoffs, but they have yet to increase their hiring," said Mark Zandi, the chief economist for Moody's Economy.com. "It won't be until next year before job growth resumes, as the leading indicators — including near-record-low hours worked and falling temporary-help jobs — remain weak."

The significance of Friday's report is that it shows job losses continuing to improve steadily.

"That really is what is important," Christina Romer, the head of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said on CNBC television. "It's still a terrible number, but it is certainly showing those numbers moderating."

Health care was the only bright spot in Friday's numbers. The sector added more than 28,000 jobs, while the construction and manufacturing sectors posted another month of big losses, 65,000 and 63,000 positions, respectively.

In service industries, both financial services and retail sales lost fewer jobs than they did in previous months, another positive sign.

The Department of Labor numbers also showed 16.8 percent of the work force underemployed or unemployed.

Since the recession began in December 2007, the number of unemployed has risen by 7.4 million and the unemployment rate has increased by 4.8 percentage points. Some 14.9 million Americans are unemployed; when rounded as a percentage, one in 10 working-age Americans is jobless.

Nearly 5 million Americans have been unemployed for six months or longer, putting renewed pressure on Congress and the Obama administration to extend unemployment benefits again.

The National Employment Law Project, an advocacy group for extending jobless benefits, said in a statement that the number of long-term unemployed was now three times what it was a year ago.

"Very few sectors actually added jobs, but most saw slower rates of decline," Nigel Gault, the chief U.S. economist for forecaster IHS Global Insight, summed up in a research note.

Still, other data remained grim.

"With the workweek flat and temporary help still declining, there were no leading indicators in the report suggesting that we'll actually be adding jobs this year," Gault said.

"The president has said from the beginning it's a long, hard slog," Romer said, noting that August's job losses had returned to the pace they were before last September's near-collapse of the global financial system.

Despite the slowing pace of job losses, the unemployment rate is expected to keep ticking upward this year because there are more new entrants in the work force and more people giving up looking for work.

"The unemployment rate has begun to rise more slowly as the rate of employment contraction has moderated, but it will tend to rise even in the early stage of labor market expansion, when job growth falls short of labor force growth," Alan Levenson, the chief economist for investment manager T. Rowe Price, said in a research note.

Supporters of the government's economic stimulus efforts think that Friday's numbers underscore how the $787 billion package that passed earlier this year is starting to be felt across the economy.

"The subdued job losses are now a third of what they were before the stimulus plan hit the street and wage growth picked up, both further signs of stabilization," forecaster RDQ Economics wrote in a research note. "Of course, unemployment is still heading up and has more to go, so we are far from out of the woods yet."

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/74910.html

SPECTRE1 · Sep 5, 2009

Economic theory has noted that reaching full employment would cause inflation to go out of control. Therefore, it has been theorized that low unemployment is a natural part of an efficient capitalist economy.

Based on the stats on black unemployment, it seems we are unequally stuffed into this unemployment black hole of a capitalist economy so others "group(s)" can work and build wealth.

20-25% Unemployment in the black community, in some cities, it is 50%. Not only that, black men are stuffed in prison, making getting a job difficult, more people to keep unemployed to maintain unemployment and control inflation.

21st century Slavery...

? Other countries provide extensive unemployment, healthcare, and educational benefits to people that are unemployed. These societies are more homogenous and don't have a group of people to shit on to transfer more wealth. Food for thought, if you are sitting at home unemployed...

:lol:

QueEx · Sep 5, 2009

COINTELPRO said:
Economic theory has noted that reaching full employment would cause inflation to go out of control. Therefore, it has been theorized that low unemployment is a natural part of an efficient capitalist economy.

Assuming the theory above to be true . . . how do you make the leap to this:

COINTELPRO said:
Based on the stats on black unemployment, it seems we are unequally stuffed into this unemployment black hole of a capitalist economy so others "group(s)" can work and build wealth.

20-25% Unemployment in the black community, in some cities, it is 50%. Not only that, black men are stuffed in prison and prevented from getting work to keep them from gettings with makes the the economy efficient.

You could be right. But, it seems there is a gap between the theory (low unemployment is a natural part of an efficient capitalist economy) and the result (we are unequally stuffed into this unemployment black hole . . . so others "group(s)" can work and build wealth).

How is what your theory not guilty of committing the fallacy of 'cause and effect' ? ? ?

QueEx

SPECTRE1 · Sep 5, 2009

Keynesian Economics or Milton Friedman - Noted unemployment is needed to keep inflation under control. Full employment would lead to rampant inflation under capitalism...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_employment

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_rate_of_unemployment

Therefore, if somebody needs to be unemployed to control inflation, why not stuff felons, minorities, whistleblowers and other undesirables into this 5%. It is 10 percent now because of the slumping economy but it has never been .04% or something like that. If all things were equal, why is black unemployment always double the national average? Why are toxic subprime mortgages targeted at minority communities? You starting to see the pattern...

The same thing happen after slavery, with sharecropping and toxic loans that were made to the farmers. These loans prevented former slaves from building wealth and owning their own land.

In any event, the unemployed descrease the money supply and keep wages under control. Plus, this weak ass unemployment benefits (which has been increased), no access to healthcare, and higher education (no debt) doesn't occur in other countries where the populations are more homogenous. Being unemployed in these countries is a whole lot better than being unemployed in the United States.

Turn on the TV during the day when most people are working, ever wonder why most of the shows are black?

:lol:

QueEx · Nov 7, 2009

COINTELPRO said:
Keynesian Economics or Milton Friedman - Noted unemployment is needed to keep inflation under control. Full employment would lead to rampant inflation under capitalism...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full_employment

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_rate_of_unemployment

Therefore, if somebody needs to be unemployed to control inflation, why not stuff felons, minorities, whistleblowers and other undesirables into this 5%. It is 10 percent now because of the slumping economy but it has never been .04% or something like that. If all things were equal, why is black unemployment always double the national average? Why are toxic subprime mortgages targeted at minority communities? You starting to see the pattern...

The same thing happen after slavery, with sharecropping and toxic loans that were made to the farmers. These loans prevented former slaves from building wealth and owning their own land.

In any event, the unemployed descrease the money supply and keep wages under control. Plus, this weak ass unemployment benefits (which has been increased), no access to healthcare, and higher education (no debt) doesn't occur in other countries where the populations are more homogenous. Being unemployed in these countries is a whole lot better than being unemployed in the United States.

Turn on the TV during the day when most people are working, ever wonder why most of the shows are black?

I missed this back in September. I must say, I am troubled by the part I put in bold, above. There appears to be a lack of nexus between Cause and Effect.

QueEx

QueEx · Nov 7, 2009

<center>
Joblessness passes 10 percent;
worst rate in a generation</center>

McClatchy Newspapers
By Kevin G. Hall
November 6, 2009

WASHINGTON — The nation's unemployment rate leapt up by a larger-than-expected four-tenths of a percentage point in October to 10.2 percent, even as the pace of job losses slowed sharply, the government reported Friday.

Employers shed 190,000 jobs in October, the slowest pace since near the beginning of the devastating recession that began in December 2007. The Labor Department also revised its August and September jobless numbers to reflect that 91,000 fewer jobs were lost over those two months than first thought.

Those trends are positive because they suggest that the torrid pace of job losses has slowed. That's supported by recent economic growth numbers that showed 3.5 percent growth from July through September.

In another positive sign, the professional and business services sector added 18,000 jobs in October, indicating that a sector beyond health care and education finally is seeing job growth. Temporary employment, which usually precedes a return to hiring, was up by almost 34,000 in October, the third straight month of gains.

The surge in the unemployment rate, which is now at its highest level since April 1983, is likely to overshadow any good news on the growth front, however.

"You can't see an unemployment rate of 10.2 percent and not be concerned," Christina Romer, the head of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, acknowledged on CNBC television.

Many economists expected unemployment to hit 10 percent this year, but few thought that it would get this high by October.

"Small and midsized businesses are still shedding workers. Unlike big businesses who have been able to stabilize profits and have access to credit, small and midsized businesses are low on cash and can't get credit," said Mark Zandi, the chief economist for forecaster Moody's Economy.com in West Chester, Pa. "The job market isn't deteriorating as fast as it was earlier in the year, but it isn't going to improve until next spring at the earliest."

When discouraged workers and underemployed workers are factored in, the unemployment rate stands around 17.5 percent. Most troubling, 35 percent of the jobless, about 5.6 million Americans, have been unable to find work for more than six months. This grim figure was largely unchanged in October.

Some analysts viewed the sharp jump in unemployment as a statistical aberration.

"While the politics will focus on the spike in the unemployment rate to 10.2 percent, the economics of the move make little sense, and we think it's mostly a product of the small sample that the household survey is based on," forecaster RDQ Economics said in a research note Friday morning.

RDQ, which is based in New York, noted that labor force participation fell in October, which serves to hold down the unemployment rate, and still the controversial survey used to calculate unemployment rose.

"The payroll change, with the significant upward revisions to August and September, provide further confirmation that economic activity is expanding at a fairly solid pace once the brisk rate of productivity growth is factored in," RDQ said in the note.

The reference stems from a Labor Department report Thursday that showed that productivity surged at an annualized rate of 9.5 percent from July to September. It suggested that companies were squeezing more out of their work forces, fomenting what's expected to be a jobless recovery initially. Productivity is a measure of the hourly output per worker, and the more that can be produced with the fewest workers, the more productive — and likely profitable — a company can be.

Just as Democrats did last year, Republicans fired off statements less than 15 minutes after the jobs report was released blaming the Obama administration for the problems in the jobs market.

"Since President Obama's inauguration, the nation has watched the unemployment rate continue to climb, and unfortunately the month of October was no different," the Republican National Committee said. "With so many families looking for work, it is time the Obama administration stop spreading their phony 'saved or created' talking points and start creating the dependable jobs America needs."

The October job losses reflect the 22nd consecutive month that employers shed jobs, the longest such losing streak since the Great Depression. Nine of those months were under the Obama administration, 13 of them under the Bush administration.

The Labor Department said Friday that employers had shed an average of 188,000 jobs each month over the past three months. That compares favorably with the average of 357, 000 jobs lost in each of the three months preceding that.

Despite that improving picture, the high unemployment rate gives greater urgency to efforts in Congress not only to extend unemployment benefits for the huge number of jobless Americans, but also to consider tax and other incentives for businesses to hire.

"Unemployment has now exceeded what some thought would be the peak rate we would attain. With such a huge fire we need every hose we can find to put it out," said Lawrence Mishel, the president of the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal policy-research group.

OCTOBER EMPLOYMENT BY SECTOR:

• Construction, fell by 62,000.

• Manufacturing, down 61,000.

• Leisure and hospitality, down 37,000.

• Retail, off 40,000.

• Government, unchanged

• Professional and business services, plus 18,000.

• Health care and education, plus 45,000.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/economy/story/78462.html

QueEx · Nov 7, 2009

See, October 2009 jobs report.

Panameno718 · Nov 7, 2009

Is it just me how can the economy be better like the Lie-House stated last week when jobe are being lost every single day :confused:

???? There is no such thing as jobless recovery :smh:

. Im still wondering where are we gong to get this money for Health Care when America is broke :angry:

. Who do you think is going to get fucked???? Not the poor or the rich the MIDDLE CLASS!!!!

tajshan · Nov 7, 2009

Re: Job losses hit 5-year high, reignite fears of new recession

thoughtone said:
You must not have a family, home. Spoken like a true Gen X slacker that lives at home with mommy and daddy.

It would be the rule but here on planet earth - it ain't that easy right now.

QueEx · Nov 12, 2009

Re: Job losses hit 5-year high, reignite fears of new recession

<center>
Obama urged to turn successful
state job program national</center>

11web-ECONOMY-JOBLESS-major.major_story_img.prod_affiliate.91.jpg

Devon Hoover, right and Bill Montgomery use a hydraulic
brake press to shape a metal form at Streich Bros., Inc.

McClatchy Newspapers
By Tony Pugh
November 12, 2009

WASHINGTON — As job losses continue to slow the nation's economic recovery, labor experts and economists are urging Congress and the Obama administration to boost funding for a little-known program that 17 states are using to avert layoffs and keep workers in their jobs.

Mass layoffs of 50 or more employees claimed 278,000 jobs in the third quarter alone, according to new government data. All the laid-off workers were idled for at least a month and only one-third of their employers expected any of them to be recalled.

In the face of continuing business slowdowns, however, thousands of employers are forgoing layoffs and taking advantage of state "work-sharing" programs in which they cut the hours of full-time workers, who then recoup a portion of their lost wages — usually 50 to 60 percent — from unemployment insurance benefits.

The rules vary by state, but work sharing typically helps reimburse employees for wage reductions ranging from 10 to 60 percent.

For example, an employer that needs to cut 20 percent of its full-time work force could do so through layoffs. If those laid-off workers earned an average of $500 a week, they probably could expect roughly $250 a week in unemployment benefits.

However, if instead of layoffs those workers' hours were cut by 20 percent through the work-sharing program, they'd each earn $400 a week. They'd also be eligible for the program's jobless benefits, which would make up about half of that $100 wage cut, or $50. With this approach, the worker's earnings would be roughly $450 a week, a 10 percent cut instead of a 50 percent cut.

Employees like the program, which is sometimes called "short-time compensation," because the wage reductions are absorbed equally among workers, avoiding the stress and income loss of layoffs. Employers like it because they can reduce payroll and retain experienced workers and don't have to pay to recruit, hire and train new workers when the economy improves.

State governments like work sharing because participants receive less in cash benefits than laid-off workers do, easing the drain on state unemployment funds, which have been hard hit during the recession.

Streich Brothers Inc., a machine and fabrication shop in Tacoma, Wash., has used the program for nearly four years. Thirty-six of its 40 employees are enrolled.

After eliminating six positions this year, company President Christine Fisher said the work-sharing program helped her avoid at least four temporary layoffs by adjusting the hours of her machinists and welders.

"The flexibility is what's good for us," Fisher said. "It allows me to fluctuate and have a certain amount of workers here all the time, every day. One week they may be down four hours, and the next week I may only need them to work three days."

Steve Barry, a union welder at the company for nearly 20 years, said he sometimes lost 16 to 24 hours a week in the program, but unemployment benefits make up more than half of his lost earnings. Barry said he liked work sharing because all employees shared the benefits, and he was more financially able to handle the lost hours than younger workers were.

"If I want to take a little time off and give a guy below me with less seniority a chance to work, and he needs it worse than I do, then it works out great for all of us," Barry said.

Work-sharing programs are available in Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, New York state, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Oregon, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont and Washington state. Their popularity has skyrocketed since the economy tanked in December 2007.

In California, which established the nation's first work-sharing program in 1978, nearly 183,000 workers were enrolled through the first nine months of the year, compared with a little more than 80,000 for all of last year.

The nation's second-largest work-sharing program, in Washington state, has a record enrollment of more than 2,500 businesses and more than 50,000 workers who filed claims this year. The program already has paid out more than $31 million in unemployment benefits this year, compared with $4 million in 2008.

In New York, more than 1,800 companies have enrolled this year, compared with 483 last year. The increase has helped save an estimated 10,500 jobs through the first eight months of the year, more than two-and-a-half times as many as last year.

That surge in participation has convinced many that it's time to take work sharing national.

"It should be an option in every state," said Neil Ridley, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Law and Social Policy, a liberal research center in Washington, D. C. "It doesn't work in every situation, but it should be an option that's on the table for employers and workers."

At the New Buffalo Shirt Factory in Clarence, N.Y., all the company's 120 hourly workers are in the program. Employee retention is the biggest benefit, said Pam Thayer, the company's human resources director.

"My employees know that if they only work four days a week for a month or two, they know they'll get that one day of unemployment, so they don't have go out and look for another job, worried that, 'I don't have a steady income. I need something I can depend on.' This provides them with that," Thayer said.

The lack of work-sharing programs in other states could reflect confusion about how to comply with the federal laws that govern the programs, said Richard Hobbie, the head of the National Association of State Workforce Agencies.

Work-sharing programs require union consent when employees are covered by collective bargaining agreements. Some states, such as Washington, require that health benefits be provided to all employees who participate.

Fisher of Streich Brothers in Tacoma said the added cost was a drawback, particularly when employees weren't working 40-hour schedules.

The Center for Law and Social Policy wants the Obama administration to shore up any legal questions surrounding the federal law and provide technical assistance and financing to expand work-sharing programs.

In congressional testimony last month before Congress' Joint Economic Committee, Mark Zandi, the chief economist of Moody's Economy.com, urged Congress and the Obama administration to provide $2 billion in seed money to establish work-sharing programs nationwide next year.

An economic adviser to Arizona Sen. John McCain's 2008 Republican presidential campaign, Zandi estimated that every dollar spent to fund work-sharing programs would result in a $1.69 increase in the gross domestic product the following year.

"Like the temporary extension of unemployment insurance benefits, work share has a high bang for the buck, as it provides financial help to distressed workers, who are likely to quickly spend any aid they receive," Zandi said in written testimony.

To help ease the strain on state unemployment-insurance funds, Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., introduced legislation in August that for two years would finance all work-sharing benefits paid to employees for up to 26 weeks. The Senate Committee on Finance is considering Reed's "Keep Americans Working Act" (S. 1646).

Senate Democrats are crafting a job-creation bill, but it's unclear whether it would beef up funding for work-sharing programs.

The White House didn't respond to a request for comment about the programs, but in his inaugural address, President Barack Obama said: "It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job, which sees us through our darkest hours."

Like regular unemployment insurance, work-sharing benefits are drawn from the unemployment insurance trust fund and from the employers' unemployment reserve accounts. The benefits paid to workers count against their unemployment insurance accounts as well.

Douglas Holmes, the president of the National Foundation for Unemployment Compensation and Workers' Compensation, said that his organization hadn't taken a position on work sharing. However, he said that some states' restrictions — such as maintaining employee health benefits — could limit employers' flexibility to cut costs under the program. He also said the programs were complicated to administer.

Thayer of the New Buffalo Shirt Factory said the added paperwork for all her employees took 30 to 45 minutes a week.

"But I don't find it a real burden," she said. "Investing 45 minutes to retain my employees and help them out financially is worth it."

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/78720.html

QueEx · Nov 12, 2009

Re: Job losses hit 5-year high, reignite fears of new recession

20091111_ECONOMY_JOBLESS.large.prod_affiliate.91.jpg

QueEx · Nov 12, 2009

Re: Job losses hit 5-year high, reignite fears of new recession



How California's work-sharing program works

actinanass · Nov 12, 2009

Seriously, what do you expect?

You have a congress that rather "fix" health care than private business.

You have a president that will do anything congress wants to do, even if it hurts his chances in 2012.

You have a government that believes in spending to fix things, instead of working the situation out efficiently.

On top of that, private businesses look at the government like they know higher taxes will come if they start hiring more people. Thus, making another recession situation.

What everyone needs to understand is that people who run big businesses do know what they have to do to make a profit in any situation. They know how to do more with less when it comes to employment. Thus, with every social program Obama and company wants, big business is looking at it in a "oh shit, I have to fire more people to turn a profit" mentality. Of course, this is because of Bush job policies right?

Vanishing Jobs, Rising Unemployment

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SE for CI, Terrorism, Revenge, Extortion

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