#1 According to CNBC, economists were expecting the U.S. economy to add 145,000 jobs during January. Obviously the 36,000 figure was a huge disappointment.
#2 Approximately 150,000 jobs need to be added to the economy each month just to keep up with population growth.
#3 The government jobs report also indicated that 504,000 Americans "dropped out of the labor force" in January. That may make the unemployment numbers look better, but the truth is that the vast majority of those 500,000 Americans still need incomes and still need jobs.
#4 According to the latest numbers from Gallup, the unemployment rate actually increased to 9.8% at the end of January.
#5 Gallup's measure of "underemployment" (those that are unemployed plus those that are working part-time but want full-time employment) was sitting at 18.9% at the end of January.
#6 As I reported yesterday, there are approximately 28 million Americans that would like full-time jobs but that don't have full-time jobs.
#7 According to Zero Hedge, the number of Americans that are "not in the labor force" but that would like a job right now has hit an all-time record high. If you add all of those people into the official unemployment figure it would jump to 12.8%.
#8 According to Calculated Risk, this is the deepest and most brutal employment downturn that the United States has experienced since World War II. The current employment downturn started 37 months ago and there doesn't seem to be any indication that we will return to pre-recession levels any time soon.
#9 The U.S. Labor Department has also announced that job growth during 2010 was much weaker than they had previously reported. The numbers for 8 months were revised down, and the numbers for 4 months were revised up. After all of the revisions are accounted for, it turns out that a total of 215,000 fewer jobs were created during 2010 than originally calculated.
#10 According to one brand new survey, 4 out of every 10 Americans are struggling "a lot" to pay the bills right now.
The situation is not pretty out there. The U.S. needs tens of millions more jobs than we have right now.
Daniel_Plainview wrote:10 Reasons Why The Latest Unemployment Numbers Suck
Xenophobe wrote:As easily as the world breezed through peak oil, some moderate unemployment level isn't that big of a deal. Its happened before, it'll happen again, this is the way business cycles work.
Xenophobe wrote:Its happened before, it'll happen again, this is the way business cycles work.
Daniel_Plainview wrote:Xenophobe wrote:Its happened before, it'll happen again, this is the way business cycles work.
Xeno, this hasn't happened before. We now confront a fundamental structural unemployment problem. This is a "big deal" for most middle class Americans.
Xenophobe wrote:Now it's time to retrain and get a job worthy of whatever skills they have not related to people treating their homes as an ATM.
Plantagenet wrote:
You don't get it.
You can retrain every single unemployed person but it won't fix the problem --- the economy isn't creating enough jobs to absorb the millions of unemployed people yet.
Plantagenet wrote: Its not even creating enough jobs to keep up with the natural increase in population.
Xenophobe wrote:I understand that completely. Fortunately, it will most likely improve in the foreseeable future.
Plantagenet wrote:Xenophobe wrote:Now it's time to retrain and get a job worthy of whatever skills they have not related to people treating their homes as an ATM.
You don't get it.
You can retrain every single unemployed person but it won't fix the problem --- the economy isn't creating enough jobs to absorb the millions of unemployed people. Its not even creating enough jobs to keep up with the natural increase in population.
peripato wrote:Plantagenet wrote:Xenophobe wrote:Now it's time to retrain and get a job worthy of whatever skills they have not related to people treating their homes as an ATM.
You don't get it.
You can retrain every single unemployed person but it won't fix the problem --- the economy isn't creating enough jobs to absorb the millions of unemployed people. Its not even creating enough jobs to keep up with the natural increase in population.
There is no incentive anyway to decrease employment, because then the Fed would have to;
1) End the stimulus, which would put an end to the phony recovery
2) Raise interest rates, which would also put an end to the phony recovery
Is it any wonder then that the stock market is climbing and Fortune 500 companies aren't hiring, despite posting record profits, the latter of which is largely a consequence of the devaluation of the US dollar?
dsula wrote:Xenophobe wrote:I understand that completely. Fortunately, it will most likely improve in the foreseeable future.
Based on? Past recessions you lived through? Don't we all know that predicting tomorrow based on yesterday might not always be correct?
Daniel_Plainview wrote:peripato wrote:Plantagenet wrote:Xenophobe wrote:Now it's time to retrain and get a job worthy of whatever skills they have not related to people treating their homes as an ATM.
You don't get it.
You can retrain every single unemployed person but it won't fix the problem --- the economy isn't creating enough jobs to absorb the millions of unemployed people. Its not even creating enough jobs to keep up with the natural increase in population.
There is no incentive anyway to decrease employment, because then the Fed would have to;
1) End the stimulus, which would put an end to the phony recovery
2) Raise interest rates, which would also put an end to the phony recovery
Is it any wonder then that the stock market is climbing and Fortune 500 companies aren't hiring, despite posting record profits, the latter of which is largely a consequence of the devaluation of the US dollar?
Do you mean "decrease unemployment"?
peripato wrote:There is no incentive anyway to decrease unemployment, because then the Fed would have to;
1) End the stimulus, which would put an end to the phony recovery
2) Raise interest rates, which would also put an end to the phony recovery
Is it any wonder then that the stock market is climbing and Fortune 500 companies aren't hiring, despite posting record profits, the latter of which is largely a consequence of the devaluation of the US dollar?
Daniel_Plainview wrote:peripato wrote:There is no incentive anyway to decrease unemployment, because then the Fed would have to;
1) End the stimulus, which would put an end to the phony recovery
2) Raise interest rates, which would also put an end to the phony recovery
Is it any wonder then that the stock market is climbing and Fortune 500 companies aren't hiring, despite posting record profits, the latter of which is largely a consequence of the devaluation of the US dollar?
That's an interesting perspective. If the Fed's ultimate concern is to keep interest rates at zero, or as low as possible, then, perversely, the Fed would want unemployment to stay relatively high.
OilFinder2 wrote:This will be revised upwardOne set of figures not subject to revision is the Treasury Department’s data on receipts from income taxes. And those numbers are giving a more positive signal, said Carl Riccadonna ...
The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for December was revised from +121,000
to +152,000, and the change for January was revised from +36,000 to +63,000.
OilFinder2 wrote:OilFinder2 wrote:This will be revised upwardOne set of figures not subject to revision is the Treasury Department’s data on receipts from income taxes. And those numbers are giving a more positive signal, said Carl Riccadonna ...
Told ya!
January Employment Report: Wasn't so bad after allThe change in total nonfarm payroll employment for December was revised from +121,000
to +152,000, and the change for January was revised from +36,000 to +63,000.
And still one more revision to go next month.
ZH: About That "Jobs Improvement" Under President Obama ... We have heard much from the propaganda machine just how much better the jobs situation has gotten under president Obama three years into his term. We would like to interject with two very simple charts...
Wonder why the unemployment rate is at an artificially low 8.9%? Three simple words: Labor Force Participation. At 64.2%, it was unchanged from last month, and continues to be at a 25 year low. Should the LFP return to its 25 trendline average of 66.1%, the unemployment rate would be 11.6%. And indicatively, the Birth/Death adjustment was +112,000.
OilFinder2 wrote:I do believe DP is upset because things aren't going as he expected.
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