Recovery: Unemployment Rate Up To 9.6%, 54,000 Jobs Lost In The Economy

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Nonfarm payroll employment changed little (-54,000) in August, and the unemployment rate was about unchanged at 9.6 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Government employment fell, as 114,000 temporary workers hired for the decennial census completed their work. Private-sectorpayroll employment continued to trend up modestly (+67,000).

Worse than those numbers, though, is the long term unemployment picture:

The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) declined by 323,000 over the month to 6.2 million. In August, 42.0 percent ofunemployed persons had been jobless for 27 weeks or more. (See table A-12.)
In August, the civilian labor force participation rate (64.7 percent) and the employment-population ratio (58.5 percent) were essentially unchanged.
(See table A-1.)

The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) increased by 331,000 over the month to 8.9 million. These individuals were workingpart time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job. (See table A-8.)

About 2.4 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force in August, little changed from a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally ad-
justed.) These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. (See table A-16.)

Among the marginally attached, there were 1.1 million discouraged workers in August, an increase of 352,000 from a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them. The remaining 1.3 million persons marginally attached to the labor force had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding thesurvey for reasons such as school attendance or family responsibilities.

The spin you’re going to hear from the Obama apologists will be to hype the 67,000 jobs supposedly added to the private sector. While that’s growth, statistically we’re falling behind. In order to keep up with population growth our economy would have had to add about 100,000 jobs.
The 67,000 job number means we’re falling behind.

The point is, our economy still isn’t creating jobs. The “stimulus” deficit spending Democrats passed hasn’t helped. In fact, it’s made things worse even as Obama plans more of the same spending.

Democrats argue that the economy would have been worse without the stimulus. I’d argue that, were it not for all the government mucking about, the economy would already be on the road to recovery.

Br Rob Port