Posted on 01/09/2009 9:49:30 AM PST by NormsRevenge
The US economy lost more than half a million jobs in December for the second month running, new figures showed on Friday, making 2008 the worst year for job losses since 1945.
The unemployment rate – which hit a low of 4.4 per cent prior to the start of the credit crisis – jumped to 7.2 per cent, its highest level in 16 years. Unemployment has now risen by a full percentage point since September, when the crisis intensified with the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the investment bank.
There was a further rise in the number of discouraged workers no longer actively seeking employment.
President-elect Barack Obama seized on the report – which he said showed the situation in the jobs market was “dire” and “deteriorating” – to urge swift passage of his proposed near-$800bn fiscal stimulus by Congress.
“This morning we received a stark reminder of how urgently action is needed,” he said. “For the sake of our economy and our people, this is the time to act without delay.”
Stock markets sagged on the news even though the headline number of 524,000 jobs lost was less than the 600,000-plus figure feared by many analysts as investors focused on the grim details of the report.
Average hours worked by those with jobs fell to 33.3 hours a week, the lowest level since this number was first estimated in 1964 – while the number of temporary help workers also fell. Both numbers suggesting further large job losses are likely to follow.
Meanwhile, revisions to previous months data showed job losses in October and November were even larger than originally reported. The only faint piece of positive news was an increase in hourly earnings.
Goldman Sachs said it was “another terrible employment report, although not perhaps as bad as some in the market had feared.”
Job losses were more concentrated in manufacturing and construction than in November, although this could reflect incomplete adjustment for seasonal factors. Only health and education, plus the government sector, eeked out positive gains.
Including the figures for December, the US manufacturing sector lost 791,000 jobs in 2008, while the retail trade lost 522,000.
There were early signs on Friday that the political pendulum – which had swung away from swift package of a fiscal stimulus of nearly $800bn or larger following this week’s $1,200bn deficit warning from the Congressional Budget Office – was swinging back in favour following the jobs report.
Manufacturing industry associations, labour unions and others issued statements demanding swift passage of a big stimulus.
Indeed.
There were probably many more bananas eaten by Americans in 2008 than in 1945, meanwhile probably fewer cigarettes smoked. Who knows what either might mean.
I think that the observations about that "number" of jobs lost assertion (don't know if it is indeed a fact), were made just to point out its simplism.
>>>It is stunning how the revanchist Establishment has managed to push the starting date of the recession back one year into the Bush administration to protect the Clueless One.
It is not revisionist to say the credit crisis began in July 2007. It is fact. Take a look at:
TED spreads (the difference between what the U.S. government and banks pay to borrow for three months)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/cbuilder?ticker1=.TEDSP%3AIND
High Yield bond spreads
http://www.bis.org/publ/qtrpdf/r_qt0812a.pdf
Asset Backed Commercial Paper rates and issuance
http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/cp/
Bank lending standards
http://www.federalreserve.gov/boarddocs/SnLoanSurvey/200811/fullreport.pdf
This report is a nice summary.
http://www.bis.org/publ/arpdf/ar2008e6.pdf
...interesting thread for the interesting times that haven’t arrived, yet.
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