Unemployment Rate Falls

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heyheybooboo

Diamond Member
Jun 29, 2007
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Unemployment Rate Falls to 10%

U.S. job losses in November posted the smallest drop since the start of the recession and the unemployment rate unexpectedly declined, a sign the labor market is finally healing as the economy recovers...

... was the best showing since December 2007, when the recession began ...

Employment fell in construction, manufacturing, and information, while temporary help services and health care added jobs.

In a separate report, U.S. factory orders rose for the sixth time in seven months in October, posting a 0.6% gain on the heels of stronger than previously estimated growth in September....

Employment in the service sector -- the main source of U.S. jobs -- rose by 58,000 in November. But that was more than offset by manufacturing companies shedding 41,000 jobs and construction companies cutting 27,000.

Health-care employment continued to rise in November, by 21,000. The industry has added 613,000 jobs since the recession began at the end of 2007....
Click to expand...

It's a start.


... In minutes released after their Nov. 3-4 meeting, Fed officials said they expect the jobless rate to remain between 9.3% and 9.7% by this time next year, and to settle above 8% in 2011, levels usually seen in recessions.
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But the dark clouds of a jobless recovery linger on the horizon.


- :(
 
G

Genx87

Lifer
Apr 8, 2002
41,095
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No surprise. Job creation lags the economy by 18-24 months. While I dont think his democrat pals in congress will survive this mess. Obama should actually be heading in 2012 on a warm job market. Unless we see a double dip, which is possible once the stimulus money runs out at the end of 2010.
 
Specop 007

Specop 007

Diamond Member
Jan 31, 2005
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Health care employment rises, but Obungo is doing his damned to fuck that one up too.
 
Ozoned

Ozoned

Diamond Member
Mar 22, 2004
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Genx87 said:
No surprise. Job creation lags the economy by 18-24 months. While I dont think his democrat pals in congress will survive this mess. Obama should actually be heading in 2012 on a warm job market. Unless we see a double dip, which is possible once the stimulus money runs out at the end of 2010.
Click to expand...

Here is some more good signals on the economy. Notice the graphs on total car loadings.
http://railfax.transmatch.com/

Most of the stimulus money has not been spent yet. What little that has been spent attributes little to the physical movement of goods in the market except for the cash for clunkers addition.

Keep the government out of it, let the market correct itself, find the real baseline, and build on that foundation.
 
Fern

Fern

Elite Member
Sep 30, 2003
26,907
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Unemployment Rate Falls
Click to expand...

We're still losing jobs.

Unemployment fell because some some unemployed are no longer counted; they've been unemployed too long.

I don't see any good news in those rail car graphs either. Looks to me like it's still going down.

Fern
 
Ozoned

Ozoned

Diamond Member
Mar 22, 2004
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Fern said:
We're still losing jobs.



I don't see any good news in those rail car graphs either. Looks to me like it's still going down.

Fern
Click to expand...
?????
Total car-loadings have been on a steady rise since the middle of the 2nd quarter. Intermodal, a good indicator for consumer spending, has been on a steady rise since the middle of the 1st quarter.
 
Fern

Fern

Elite Member
Sep 30, 2003
26,907
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Ozoned said:
?????
Total car-loadings have been on a steady rise since the middle of the 2nd quarter. Intermodal, a good indicator for consumer spending, has been on a steady rise since the middle of the 1st quarter.
Click to expand...

Well, every 2008 vs 2009 (total and intermodal) comparison I see indicates we're down compared to last year; charts & graphs.

At each data point on the graph, we're lower than last year. The '08 and '09 lines seem to indicate a similar pattern. I.e., traffic looks like it will fall off big time by the end of the year. I'm not sure how you can project those (typical) seasonal rises out into the future and conclude we'll be back to black numbers (year-to-year increases in traffic).

Fern
 
F

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
84,039
48,030
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This is pretty much unquestionably good news. The rate of job losses has fallen by 95% since the beginning of the year and it's even possible that when these numbers are revised we will see a small amount of job growth. For the situation to change this much in such a short time during what many economists considered the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression is a fabulous thing.

Come on people, you can be happy for better economic news even if it makes the Democrats look good.
 
rudder

rudder

Lifer
Nov 9, 2000
19,441
85
91
Genx87 said:
No surprise. Job creation lags the economy by 18-24 months. While I dont think his democrat pals in congress will survive this mess. Obama should actually be heading in 2012 on a warm job market. Unless we see a double dip, which is possible once the stimulus money runs out at the end of 2010.
Click to expand...

I know at least in our state there were a lot of government jobs funded with stimulus money. The jobs were budgeted for 18 months. That was about 6 months ago. The state does not have the funds to hire anyone permanently so when this funding is gone... these people will be back on the street. I am not sure of the overall impact are far as future hiring goes... but something to look at.
 
WhipperSnapper

WhipperSnapper

Lifer
Oct 30, 2004
11,442
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91
U.S. job losses in November posted the smallest drop since the start of the recession and the unemployment rate unexpectedly declined, a sign the labor market is finally healing as the economy recovers.


Nonfarm payrolls fell by just 11,000 last month, slowing down from a downwardly revised 111,000 drop seen in October, as the recovery encouraged some companies to retain workers, the Labor Department said Friday.
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Of course the government is going to frame continuing job losses and the failure to generate the 150,000 net new jobs needed each month to keep pace with population explosion in a positive light. (That is to say, if the nation doesn't get about 150,000 net new jobs each month then it loses jobs relative to population growth--the percentage of working aged people employed decreases even if more jobs opened up than were lost.)

How can the unemployment rate decrease if the nation suffered a net job loss? The only way that could happen is if the unemployment numbers don't properly reflect the percentage of people who would like to work.

Amidst all of this there are still many bright-eyed optimists who foresee a recovery in the future, which is laughable. The jobs deficit--the number of existing jobs lost and the jobs lost relative to what is needed to keep pace with population growth--is so huge that the nation will not be able to return to previous levels of economic prosperity without tremendous amounts of change in its economic policies.

I predict that what will happen is that we may see a small cyclic improvement and that the media will flood us with good news stories while in reality the overall long-term trend is downward and that the next cyclic recession will be worse than the current one.
 
G

Genx87

Lifer
Apr 8, 2002
41,095
513
126
People lopped off the unemployment roll are people who have stopped looking for work. We have to remember the unemployment rate is a barometer of the employment market. If you arent looking for a job, you arent part of that market. THat is why we can still have net job losses but the rate drops.
 
Fern

Fern

Elite Member
Sep 30, 2003
26,907
173
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WhipperSnapper said:
-snip-
How can the unemployment rate decrease if the nation suffered a net job loss? The only way that could happen is if the unemployment numbers don't properly reflect the percentage of people who would like to work.
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There are 6 categories of unemployment - U1 through U6.

U6 was about 17.% for october, it's probably higher now.

The 10% is U3; if you've been unemployed for too long they don't count you as unemployed for U3 purposes. That's what's happened, a larger number of people no longer qualify as 'unemployed' because they've been unemployed too long (and not because they are now employed), so they are counted as a negative adjustment and they exceed the number of those new to unemplyment - so the unemployment rate goes down even though we've lost jobs.

Because we lost so many jobs earlier (and they are contiually being adjusted out of the numbners because of lenghty unemployment), we'd have to have massive lay-offs just to keep the unemployment rate unchanged. I.e., the unemployment rate is likely goin to steadily 'improve' even if we add absolutely no jobs. Welcome to government math!

Fern
 
F

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
84,039
48,030
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Fern said:
There are 6 categories of unemployment - U1 through U6.

U6 was about 17.% for october, it's probably higher now.

The 10% is U3; if you've been unemployed for too long they don't count you as unemployed for U3 purposes. That's what's happened, a larger number of people no longer qualify as 'unemployed' because they've been unemployed too long (and not because they are now employed), so they are counted as a negative adjustment and they exceed the number of those new to unemplyment - so the unemployment rate goes down even though we've lost jobs.

Because we lost so many jobs earlier (and they are contiually being adjusted out of the numbners because of lenghty unemployment), we'd have to have massive lay-offs just to keep the unemployment rate unchanged. I.e., the unemployment rate is likely goin to steadily 'improve' even if we add absolutely no jobs. Welcome to government math!

Fern
Click to expand...

It's not 'government math', it's 'economist math'. There are so many different categories for unemployment because there are so many different ways in which a person can be unemployed. (involuntary, voluntary, underemployed, etc.. etc.) Every measure of unemployment tells you something different, but the 10% figure is the most commonly cited one and it has been since...well... forever.

The rate of job losses has currently gone down to almost nothing and there might even be some job growth. Nobody is arguing that this somehow means we're back on easy street, but losing 11,000 jobs last month as compared to losing more than 700,000 a month in the beginning of the year is pretty awesome, and it's certainly a very positive sign.
 
B

bl4ckfl4g

Diamond Member
Feb 13, 2007
3,669
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Is Obungo a racial slur? lol

Can I get a list of them all so I don't make a mistake?
 
R

Robor

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
16,979
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eskimospy said:
It's not 'government math', it's 'economist math'. There are so many different categories for unemployment because there are so many different ways in which a person can be unemployed. (involuntary, voluntary, underemployed, etc.. etc.) Every measure of unemployment tells you something different, but the 10% figure is the most commonly cited one and it has been since...well... forever.

The rate of job losses has currently gone down to almost nothing and there might even be some job growth. Nobody is arguing that this somehow means we're back on easy street, but losing 11,000 jobs last month as compared to losing more than 700,000 a month in the beginning of the year is pretty awesome, and it's certainly a very positive sign.
Click to expand...

Positive compared to January but it sure will be nice when we are celebrating added jobs instead of just fewer jobs lost. :\
 
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