Inside December Jobs Report, Labor Force Hits 'Stunning New Low'

After a week of promising signs for an improving economy, the news from Friday's Bureau of Labor Statistics report on the state of jobs in America is bleaker than anticipated.

Although the unemployment rate fell to 9.4 percent from 9.8 percent in December, bringing the total number of officially unemployed Americans to 14.5 million, only 103,000 jobs were added in December according to the Labor Department's BLS report -- a number significantly lower than expected. (The Wall Street Journal reported that many Wall Street analysts were predicting "at or above 200,000" new jobs.)

The news gets worse: less than half of the drop in unemployment rate can be attributed to new job creation -- the other half came from 260,000 Americans who have dropped out of the labor force altogether.

This brings the percentage of Americans who are either employed or actively looking for work down to 64.3 percent, what economist Heidi Shierholz calls "a stunning new low for the recession."

"The overarching story here is that this represents the continued slog of the recovery." Shierholz, of the Washington, D.C.-based Economic Policy Institute, said. "It's the same old bright spots that we've been seeing, we continue to see: temporary help services, health jobs, restaurants and bars -- all up." The report shows some growth in health care and leisure services, with most other industries staying static.

"Hiring is picking up. but I think this report underlies that it's going to be a gradual process," IHS Chief U.S. Economist Nigel Gault said. "Overall it wasn't a bad report." Gault added though, that we really need twice this many jobs added per month, month after month, to see any substantial improvement in the unemployment rate.

In December, hispanic and black Americans continued to be hit hardest by unemployment. "I think this is the lowest employment-to-population ratio we've ever had for Hispanic Americans," economist Dean Baker said, also noting a 2.2 percent raise in the unemployment rate for Hispanic bringing the unemployment percent up to 32.2 (not seasonally adjusted).

For all the economists we spoke to, the drop in the labor force stuck out as the most arresting detail.

"We have now added jobs every single month for a year," Schierholz said. "So you would think that there would be labor force growth, these missing workers starting to come back in. Not only is that not happening, it's actually starting to go in the other direction. There's never been a pool of missing workers this large. It's not clear to me when they'll come back."

Comments

[Arts4u]

12:24 AM on 01/12/2011

List of companies which outsource. It's a big one. Please try to not support them...

http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/lou.dobbs.tonight/popups/exporting.america/content.html

[Akhil Khanna]

06:51 AM on 01/11/2011

The taxpayer funded bailouts for banks lead to lower standard of living for all the citizens of a country except for the beneficiaries of the bail outs. The poor people in any country live hand to mouth and do not contribute to tax revenues. The others who earn their living by small businesses or salaries pay taxes at a much higher rate than the rich individuals or big businesses. This is due to the loopholes in the taxation system which enable them to declare maximum profits in countries which have the least tax rates. So effectively in the long run the governments route the money collected as taxes from the middle class of people to the banks so that the bankers can enjoy enormous bonuses. We are in times of privatizing the profits and socializing losses for those who are well connected to the governments and the law makers.

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article24581.html

[OldTulsan]

01:06 AM on 01/11/2011

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts01102011.html
Paul Craig Roberts: Spinning Unemployment in a Collapsing Empire

"...John Williams reports that “the level of payroll employment still stands below where it was a decade ago, despite the U.S.population growing by more than 10 per cent in the same period. The structural impairments to U.S. economic activity continue to constrain normal commercial activity, preventing any meaningful recovery in business activity.”

Another way of saying this is that American corporations have taken American jobs offshore and given them to the Chinese. So much for big business patriotism.

Williams also reports that, unless it is finagled, next month’s BLS benchmark revision of payroll employment data will lower the level of previously reported employment by more than 500,000..."

[PhilipTaylor]

01:59 AM on 01/10/2011

ADD THIS FAILURE TO THE 11 MILLION MORE HOMES IN THE FORECLOSURE CHUTE (on top of the 3.5 million so far) AND YOU CAN SAY, "HE-CK OF A JOB 0BAMA!"

[PhilipTaylor]

01:57 AM on 01/10/2011

ADD THIS FAILURE TO THE 11 MILLION MORE HOMES IN THE FORECLOSURE CHUTE (on top of the 3.5 million so far) AND YOU CAN SAY, "HE11 OF A JOB BARRY!"

[Coyote1177]

09:55 PM on 01/09/2011

People should be mad about this rather than the deficit and taxes--this is the greatest cause of all financial problems

[Paul Sta]

07:48 PM on 01/09/2011

http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/lou.dobbs.tonight/popups/exporting.america/content.html

List of companies that outsourced jobs overseas, to take advantage of cheap labor.

STAGGERING!

[GreenKate]

09:24 PM on 01/09/2011

F&F, the only thing I know to do is save this list and start writing to them and organizing others to tell them we won't buy. Americans still have huge economic power as consumers and we need to speak up before we lose that power. Americans have been hearing, and ignoring, "buy American" for decades. We are running out of time people.

[Coyote1177]

09:30 PM on 01/09/2011

It is because of the misuse of globalization, millions of jiobs for American companies that service and sell to americans have been allowed to be shipped overseas, 10 of thousands of jobs per company in service jobs millions more to manufacture, this is wasteful to environement and hurtful to people--if this were stopped it would help our economy and give millions their jobs back--serve and make the most of the products sold to our country here. There is no reason other than corporate profit not to do it, we will have to do it or we will be unstable and detiorating.

[Paul Sta]

08:26 AM on 01/10/2011

Nice to see AIG and some of the Big Banks on the list. Thx for the bailout.

[gerald4]

10:46 AM on 01/10/2011

Jobs created by US individual citizens, US businesses and US corporations today will mostly be created in foreign countries to take advantage of the "FREE TRADE" laws that were created by the elected Democrat and Republican members of the US Congress that US citizens elected in the last 30 years that removed the import taxes on imported products to ALLOW, ENCOURAGE, and ECONOMICALLY REQUIRE the use of less expensive foreign labor and less expensive foreign country environmental laws, in order to give the US consumer the absolutely lowest possible price for each product, without the private US manufacturing company going bankrupt.

[Paul Sta]

11:07 AM on 01/10/2011

Unfortunately to the detriment of the american employed.

Raise prices, lower profits, and hire american workers.

[AlsoSarah]

03:53 PM on 01/09/2011

I am fortunately employed (today). I am 60 years old. For those unemployed, who is willing to hire unemployed older workers? What happens to the boomers that get laid off?

[GreenKate]

09:26 PM on 01/09/2011

F&F, likewise.
I know that if I'm laid off I will try to find a way to retire. It would be a tremendous setback financially. Probably the case with many of the disappearing workers this story talks about.

[BVictor1]

02:05 AM on 01/09/2011

That photo looks like it's a fire hazard. Don't think you're allowed to block a staircase like that.

[jcaunter]

12:40 AM on 01/09/2011

In the history books Obama and Hoover are going to be extensively compared and contrasted--(Democrats who still imagine that Bush is going to take the fall for causing this depression--which hasn't even started yet--are deluding themselves). Both Presidents were cognitively controlled by, and willingly took their marching orders from, the same Wall Street crooks who crashed the economy with their rampant fraud and greed.

[ArabianMoney]

12:07 AM on 01/09/2011

The calm in financial markets surely cannot last after this jobs bombshell! Could be the calm before the next storm, see: http://www.arabianmoney.net/us-dollar/2011/01/08/an-unnatural-state-of-calm-in-markets-as-jobs-data-disappoints/

[kenhamlett]

09:59 PM on 01/08/2011

Our current recession is often compared to the Great Depression. It may well be comparable in its size and impact, but the two are not comparable at all in terms of the government's response. The reaction to the Great Depression -- at least the response once we Democrats took office -- was a multitude of ideas and programs designed not only to end the depression, but also to give people a way to survive the worst years while doing something productive for their country. Sadly, we do not seem to be even trying to come up with those kinds of programs in our current situation. Our infrastructure continues to crumble and is begging for people to work on it, but instead of spending money to restore the country, we give more money to the rich. Instead of creating a government program like social security to guarantee incomes for the elderly, we took our shot this time by passing a health care program with no government component -- giving it entirely over to the private sector, which said "thank you" by promptly raising virtually everyone's premiums. In the Depression, we made an honest attempt to put people to work in productive ways to lower the unemployment rate. This time, we found a new trick. We just say that people have "dropped out" of the labor market, and reduce the unemployment rate artificially, even if the situation is not really getting better. I liked my old Democratic responses better than the new

[muck-raker]

08:33 PM on 01/08/2011

It LOOKS like WalMart could solve all of our problems

http://www.rense.com/general92/walmart.htm

[nofriendofrepublicans]

12:36 PM on 01/09/2011

Walmart IS the problem.

[spytheweb]

06:23 PM on 01/08/2011

I think nobody know how the economy is run, it's just like health care, it's a market and it just happens and people make money off it. But when it breaks down no one knows how to fix it.

[missprissanna]

09:55 AM on 01/11/2011

Fix it? Those with the power to fix it are the ones profiting from it. Why would they want to fix it?

Health care won't be fixed either, because the corporations who are profiting from all the deny, delay and cancel antics they are so good at will not allow that either.

[hobo62]

05:59 PM on 01/08/2011

The key is the American consumer and how he or she spends their money. Nothing has more power than the consumer. Buy "Made in the USA". Ask for it, look for it, demand it.

[Markrsm]

08:45 PM on 01/08/2011

Dear Hobo,

It is not the american consumer, it is the american producer, we need to cut our deficit, so I agree with Made in the USA, but it will not happen until the government lowers the taxes on business.

[ladyvader]

11:17 AM on 01/09/2011

How about American companies actually making their products in America instead of overseas? How about we close that loop hole that gives a tax break to those companies that ship jobs overseas?

Companies are making record profits and are not hiring in the US. Cutting taxes will not spur hiring. There was an article on that a few weeks ago.

[AlsoSarah]

03:55 PM on 01/09/2011

hobo...nothing is made in America anymore. Name some.

[traceminerals]

05:19 AM on 01/11/2011

Maglite Flashlights are made in Ontario, California. American Apparel makes clothing and cosmetics in Los Angeles, California. Many instruments are made in America (I believe). Many cars are made in Michigan and other states. Local farmers markets and food co-ops feature locally grown food. A lot of art, music, and entertainment is made here, as well as vice items like liquor, wine, tobacco, and some guns. Shop at local small, specialized retailers rather than big box stores and you will find many things Made in the USA. Finding electronics made in America is impossible, but other things aren't. We just have to make the effort and accept the higher cost in price, time, availability, etc. However, if we all did that, together, cost would be drastically lowered far quicker as the ecomony was forced to adapt, spurring new growth. Unfortunately, not enough of us understand to really make a difference.