President Obama Still Hasn’t Closed The Yawning Jobs Gap

Investors Business Daily ^ | May 6, 2016 | Editorial

[expat_panama]

Employment: April’s job growth was below expectations, which after seven years of missed targets shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. But doesn’t slow and steady win the race? The short answer is, no.

Any way you look at it, April’s report was mediocre. At 160,000 new jobs, April’s number came in well below expectations — which ranged up to 240,000. The Bureau of Labor Statistics revised its job growth number down by 19,000...

...the number of people employed dropped by 316,000 last month, while 562,000 dropped out of the labor force. As a result, the labor-force participation rate dropped to 62.8% — it was 65.7% when the recession ended in June 2009. The increasingly unreliable unemployment, as a result, remained unchanged

Nevertheless, White House economist Jason Furman was quick to point out that April extends “the longest streak of private-sector job growth on record.” Businesses “have now added 14.6 million jobs over 74 straight months of job growth.” And “the unemployment rate held steady at 5%.”...

...the employment picture is absolutely dismal. There are today only 5.5 million more jobs than there were when employment peaked at the start of the last recession. Over these following eight-plus years, however, the working-age population has climbed by 20.4 million. That leaves Obama with a 14.9 million jobs gap.

By contrast, during the Reagan recovery, the economy not only quickly made up all the jobs lost during the deep 1981-82 recession, but at a comparable point in the recovery job growth exceeded population growth by a quarter million.

So pick your poison. Either Obama’s jobs gap is 1.4 million or it’s 14.9 million. No matter how you slice it, this president will have left his successor with a vast jobs hole to fill.

[expat_panama]

There've been a number of threads on the FR about this month's BLS employment summary.  My take is that some were silly (The Coming Collapse of the Middle Class, US. payrolls gain in April smallest in seven months) and others made important points (Freight Rail Traffic Plunges: Haunting Pictures of Transportation Recession, The Next Employment Crisis Is Here: Job Cuts At U.S. Companies Jump 35 Percent In April).

Just the same, what always seems to concern me here is the ever increasing number of millions of American workers who are "not employed" and imho this editorial nails it.

What baffles me is that this is all public record and for years now very few seem to care.

[GoldenPup]

President Obama Still Hasn’t Closed The Yawning Jobs Gap

And anybody who expected this inexperienced, unaccomplished jerk to do so is just as big a jerk as he is.

[Lurkina.n.Learnin]

This thread is along the same lines.

Class 8 Truck Orders Plunge 39%; Large Truck Sales vs. Recessions
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3428814/posts

[I want the USA back]

He never intended to. He said he had a “laser-like focus on jobs.” A lie. (Also, a stupid statement. Lasers don’t focus.)

[Rumplemeyer]

How long after Trump is elected, before the MSM demands to know what he is going to do about unemployment?

[A_perfect_lady]

There’s always a huge gap between the available jobs and the folks out there who have no interest in working for a living.

[expat_panama]

Happy New Week everyone!  If you're a swing traders stocks have been in deecline for a few weeks now but if you day-trade or you're buy'n'hold then everything's fine --this morning's stock futures are +0.58%.  Gold/silver look like they've moved up to a new and improved base level ($1,276.60/$17.41) and this morning's metals futures are +1.06%!

Slow week up ahead for econ news w/ nothing coming out today.

So much news out it's hard  to know where to begin; I passed out looking at Real Clear Markets Monday and Yahoo Finance..

[grania]

re: gold and silver. I'm wondering if this might be the real deal, for some solid games. I read something this weekend that some African country is printing its own US dollars. Could that kind of thinking have folks acquiring some gold and/or silver just in case paper money has a crisis moment?

Finally, after everyone's help here, I've developed a personal strategy. It's still open to suggestions from those wiser than I am. Having a few rolls of old quarters (90% silver) and keeping up on their per-coin value at coinflation is a real good idea. In a crisis, there'd be no argument about their authenticity and value, they'd be easy to exchange for other things, and that roll of quarters is convenient enough to have with me.

[central_va]

Bring back manufacturing and there will be no employment gap.

[goodnesswins]

1 minute....and they’ll drag out the homeless and “poor” statistics too

[Diana in Wisconsin]

THAT, my FRiend, will be mere SECONDS. Count on it. ;)

[i_robot73]

>President Obama Still Hasn’t Closed The Yawning Jobs Gap

>>And anybody who expected this inexperienced, unaccomplished jerk to do so is just as big a jerk as he is.

I’ll pipe-up here and say the same thing I would under ANY President: It’s NOT the job of the President to ‘create jobs’.

I will, however, follow-up with: It IS the policies of this administration, along with the feckless do nothing to hinder (let alone roll-back the same), that exacerbates the problem.

***

It comes as no surprise, except those in govt, that MORE laws, MORE regulation, MORE *GOVT*, is a hindrance to any/all Free people and markets.

It is a fools opinion to look to the same govt to ‘solve’ any problem(s).

[i_robot73]

>Bring back manufacturing and there will be no employment gap.

Correction: Return govt to its rightful size and role (aka ‘get the hell outta the way’).

Markets will do the correction themselves. To corp/biz, in their right mind, will return when we’ve done nothing to the highest corp. tax rate in the world, the bloat of rules/regs/mandates, etc.

[353FMG]

Wow, that is a wild statement to make. You should come to a Houston job fair and see how many professionals are begging for jobs.
Even some churches help in getting their congregation involved in job hunting techniques. There are special prayer sessions to pray for the unemployed.
You have no idea what you are talking about. A good recruiter could make a very decent living in Houston, which is hard hit because of lower crude oil prices.

[central_va]

Corporations will continue to offshore for slave wages even if all regulations and taxes were eliminated.

[A_perfect_lady]

No I am saying that the chronically unemployed are often unwilling to work. Not that everyone is.

[353FMG]

There are many engineers and scientists among the “chronically” unemployed and all of them long for employment.

[A_perfect_lady]

You know full well these are not the kind of people I am talking about.

[i_robot73]

>Corporations will continue to offshore for slave wages even if all regulations and taxes were eliminated.

True. Unless The People decide that ‘Made in the U.S.A. upstart’ is far more ‘valuable’ than the cheaper version.

They sure as hell won’t be coming back w/ the govt monkey on their back that takes the 1st X% out of every dollar for doing NOTHING but putting road-blocks.