Jobs Report: Unemployment Breaks 10%
10.2% -- that's the most important number from the October Employment Report. For the first time since 1983, over 1 out of every 10 American is out of work. How's that for starting your Friday with some sobering news?
The 190,000 jobs lost in October means that since the start of the recession in December, 2007, 8.2 million people have lost their jobs and the unemployment rate has grown by 5.3%. The numbers in and of themselves would by bad enough, but they don't accurately reflect just how hard it is to find a job. For that, you need to drill down to the U-6 measure of employment, or as my friend the economist likes to say, "the true pain threshold." U-6 starts with the total number of unemployed and adds part time employees and those who are "marginally attached", which means all of those folks people who took crappy jobs that are beneath their skill levels. The U-6 was 17.5% last month.
After digging deeper into the numbers, I was able to find a tiny bit of positive data -- the number of temporary workers rose by 34,000, which was the first gain since 12/07. The addition of temps and increase of overtime hours are the first measures that will likely get us out of this horrible job situation. One other bit of solace is that the average work week didn't decline further, but remained at a record low of 33 hours. Yeeesh...cold comfort, huh?
Adding in the rest of the week's news on employment, here's what we know:
New Job loss is tapering off: Weekly initial claims for jobless benefits fell last week to the lowest level since January 3rd and ADP reported that the number of private sector jobs lost has fallen for seven straight months.
Productivity gains are a Job seeker's loss: One reason that employers don't need to hire new people, is that they're getting more out of the workers they have. The Labor Department reported that Q3 productivity grew by 9.5% annual rate, the fastest pace in six years. Employers didn't have to pay up to squeeze more out of employees. Labor costs fell at a 5.2% annual rate, capping the biggest 12-month drop since 1948.
Where does that leave us? If you don't have a job, the news confirms what you know. If you have a job, you're still worried you could lose it. In other words, we are mired in a grinding and painful period, which is like to persist for months to come.
Image by Flickr User Egan Snow, CC 2.0
Follow Jill Schlesinger on Twitter: www.twitter.com/jillonmoney
Les Leopold: Obama's Choice: Jobs Now or Republicans in November
We face a true national emergency. More than 30 million Americans are without jobs or are working part-time because there are no full-time jobs to be found.
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Mindboggling are the numbers we get fed - same paper today I read one out of 6 people is unemployed or underemployed. I believe that headline before I believe this one. We are far above 10%. Jobs were disappearing starting with the Year 2000 and while GWB still bragged the numbers of companies on Bloomberg were all in the red!
A huge national debt that threatens social programs,
A prodctivity increase of nearly 10%,
And a large, desperate, unemployed labor pool.
Sounds like a Republican wet dream to me.
Cheers!
telling the truth about unemployment figures is like telling the truth about Bill Sparkman, apparently it just can't happen. . .
. I am on(apparently) a one man crusade to bring up the topic of High Speed Rail. Do a Wikipedia search of HSR and you will see how far behind both developed and some undeveloped countries we are. The massive capitol investment(foreign investors would buy into it because they know it works), the putting of people to work both building and later maintaining a system (which would also generate revenue) is a no brainer. You can't outsource the work. It reduces our dependence on foreign oil from our enemies. Interstate commerce and tourism would be boosted. We have a glut of both commercial and residential structures. Those jobs are not coming back anytime soon. Here is something to build and fill a large hole in both our economy and infrastructure. (And believe me once the ball starts rolling the"wizards of Wall Street" will get fervently on board for the " next big thing").
Yeah, if you think the government's sadly fake declaration of 10% is bad, try starting off your day with a dose of reality: independent analysis puts the figure at closer to 22%.
http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data
How's that for starting your Friday with some sobering news?
Schlesinger asks. How is this surprising news to anyone, is what I'm asking?
Statistics mean nothing. But I suppose people have to get their information somewhere, and if stats are telling the story, then so be it, but can anyone tell me HOW they get their stats as far as unemployment goes? Who determines 10 percent? How do they come up with the number? Only 10 percent? Sounds pretty low to me.
That's because it is faked. If anyone has been looking for a job for longer than six months and still cannot find one, they are removed from the official numbers. Independent analysis puts unemployment at about 22%.
http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data
6 months looking for work? OMG...get off the computer...craigslist only goes so far.
If one is able and willing to work, do they look into the military? Oh wait, too low standards? How about this...go find a job! Look at other countries for work...make a sacrifice...it's what life is about. I am retired Navy, 21 years and have a job teaching. I worked at a golf course in between retirement and my current job. So my theory is this: people don't have the motivation or work ethic to do what it takes to find a job. They are out there....but I also understand that people with degrees have too much pride to do a blue collar job. Put away your egos and don't let this beat you. Look at the glass half full and make it happen!
The military shouldn't be the only option available for gainful employment in this country. Many people have real objections to the work our military is being called upon to do these days, and it would be righteously unAmerican to demand that one either joins a cause to which s/he conscientiously objects, or else go unemployed. That being said, "go find a job" isn't a solution! When did you get your teaching job, TheBMChief? I am guessing it was prior to December 2007, or, at the very least, prior to September 2008. The jobs are NOT out there to be found! Your "theory" that "people don't have the motivation or work ethic to do what it takes to find a job" is woefully off-base, and is very clearly based on little beyond your own arrogant perspective. I know several people who have advanced degrees working in restaurants, and who are happy to have whatever income they can get. But it's an untenable situation in the long term because, guess what, blue-collar jobs won't pay back your six-figure student loans! It's not about ego, it's about financial desperation!
Tex bra (Hawaii lingo for bro)...You surely know how to go off on a tangent...I got my job April this year. I am retired Navy and worked at a golf course for year after retirement. I don't have a degree. ROTC instructors are RETIRED military. And geez...the pay is awesome! Trust me tex, there ARE jobs...people just cannot find them because they don't have the work ethic that I have luckily developed in the Navy. It's called survival. I have an arrogant perspective based on my service to our country. Try to take that away...uh, you can't. Six figured student loans? Military would take care of them if they go officer programs. And quit living beyond their means for a change. People are so quick to point fingers at the system that is now broken. Make sacrifices and make it work. And stop whining! You have a wonderful way about you!
For one , more than half of what Congress set for the stimulus is still in the hands of Congress being held up by the GOP with intentions to make the jobs program fail . For two , the Wall Street gang that was bailed out is exporting many American jobs with the intention to cause a failure to the jobs program . Even their legal positions being exported . So our job situation is one of one step foreward and two steps backward . Wall Street has had a vendetta with unions for decades and they figured out how to get local and state retirement fund managers to put the retiree's money in Wall Streets hands . Wall Street did the same during the 1980's to retiree's money in S&L's . Wall Street now has in their hands a very high per cent of all of America's money and with that kind of power they will get what they want regardless of what the President or you and I say .
400000 service jobs have been lost to outsourcing since 2000. Over 2 million manufacturing jobs since 1983. The balance that is needed in the American economy is gone. You can't have perfect employment but a fair number of people need to be employed to keep the economy running smooth. We are in deep trouble folks. American ingenuity is now in China or third world nations trying to keep them from becoming dictatorships. We have to manufacture and produce something or we will be truly a debtors nation.
Bad excuse for people not making it work. Don't point fingers...actually the 2 posts above make poor excuses. You both are listening to too many pundits and reading way too much stuff on the internet. Look after yourself and don't worry about other people not being able to work. Plan to fail or fail to plan. Take your pick.
Why do some of the "Talking Heads" on television and certain public officials think that the unemployed workers of America do not want to find a job and get off of the unemployment roles? I live in the state that has the highest unemployment rate and there are very few jobs to be found.
The people that are criticising the working class and the unemployed all have good health care insurance and good paying jobs which means they are better than those low lifes and that is why they have the goodies and the position to criticise from .
at least in 83 we had the information age on the horizon, what do we have now that will create millions of jobs in the near future?
It's one in FIVE. Government numbers are bogus. Shadowstats give the real picture.
You can trace this all back to the Creature from Jekyll Island - the Federal Reserve, created by JP Morgan and forced upon Congress, with the explicit intent of eventually sucking up all the money from the population and creating a modern slave state. We're almost there, folks.
Since the government can't solve the problem, it's time the people start facing unemployment with their own ingenuity:
http://bit.ly/ozqT6
(satire)
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