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.
Now you know this is actually a crisis caused by too little government spending, right? After all, the answer is massively more government spending according to congress and the president elect. It’s not a credit crisis, it’s a spending crisis and Obama is the man to solve it! His checks are all blank and the numbers on his credit cards are worn down from overuse! Well, I mean our credit cards and our checks, but that’s just details.
What is the ratio of jobs lost per number of jobs for 1945 and now?
Non-profit usually means only those who administrate them are rich. Course in a socialist world every man but the bureaucrats are guaranteed a low paying job and a hovel.
Hmmm... that chart makes job gains and losses look kind of....cyclical. Is that possible?/s
Ahhh, I see. I’m not a financial guy so I don’t read that inside info.
Still that’s a raw numbers chart not percentage of population. Someone upthread suggested it would look different if presented as a percentage.
And Obama’s “global warming” taxes will kill still more jobs.
Well sure it does, there were 2.8 million jobs lost in 1945 when the US population was about 140 million.
This year 2.6 million jobs lost, population about 300 million.
So as a percentage of total population (not work force) 2% of the population lost jobs in 1945 --- .9% of the population lost jobs in 2008.
So if the whole graph were adjusted that way it would have a continuous upward trend throughout wouldn’t it?
Obama will soon have the power to start a war, draft 3 million people and solve the nation's unemployment problem!
Maybe we could invade and conquer Mexico! That would keep us busy for a while and employ lots of people! Plus, they like the new statist, socialist model!
Don’t give the Manchurian affirmative action candidate any ideas!
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.
Goebbels Media. "The bigger the lie, the more people who will believe it!"
Oooops!
interesting thread...
you are correct, I'm just too busy to do the research to find out what the "workforce" represents as a percentage of the population.
My guess is that the workforce was a smaller percentage of the population in 1945 than it is now because of more single income families then.
In the early '80s, the Feds just extended unemployment benefits an additional six months, they didn't send out checks to the whole country.
You bring up yet another factor that needs to be considered to make a fair comparison. The demographics of the work force. That made me think about how much bigger the agricultural sector used to be and I don't think self-employed farmers and ranchers were counted in employment figures then. I have seen the point made that the self-employed are not counted today which is a much larger part of the white collar sector today.
Making comparisons to sixty years ago is a rather complicated project.
Good time for the government to go after the illegals and free up some jobs for american citizens.
BUY AMERICAN.
The job you save, may be your own.
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