Posted on 03/06/2009 2:02:42 PM PST by Notoriously Conservative
Unemployment Report Bad, But Has Its Bright Spots 3/6/2009 The latest unemployment data reports the U.S. economy lost 651,000 jobs last month, signaling there's still no end in sight to the recession. WSJ's Kelly Evans tells colleague Phil Izzo what to take away from the report and what the bright spots are.
From the WSJ:
By BRIAN BLACKSTONE
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. economy continues to hemorrhage jobs at monthly rates not seen in six decades, a government report showed, signaling that there's still no end in sight to the severe recession that has already cost the U.S. over four million jobs...
Nonfarm payrolls, which are calculated by a survey of companies, fell 651,000 in February, the U.S. Labor Department said Friday, in line with economist expectations. However, December and January were revised to show much steeper declines. In the case of December, the revision was to a drop of 681,000, the most since 1949 when a huge strike affected half a million workers. However, the labor force was smaller then than it is now...
The unemployment rate, which is calculated using a survey of households, jumped 0.5 percentage point to 8.1%, the highest since December 1983 and slightly above expectations for an 8% rate. Some economists think it could hit 10% by the end of next year. For many industries including manufacturing, construction, business services and leisure, the jobless rate is already in double digits...
Ironically, some of the pressure on labor markets appears to be a byproduct of robust productivity, which is actually a big plus for the economy over the long run. But in the current environment, it seems to be making things worse for workers as nimble businesses shed labor in anticipation of falling demand, which could become a self-fulfilling prophesy...
The sole bright spot among private sector industries was health care, which tends to be more labor intensive and less productive than manufacturing and other services. Health care payrolls rose 26,900.
The government added 9,000 jobs.
(video, graph and links on site)
I’m sure gun and ammo manufacturers are hiring.
We’ll make our H1-B quotas though.
With the economy on life support, the people doing the work are drinking way too much.....and are straining under the weight of all those mortgages.
Meanwhile the out of work are needing all those anti-ulcer drugs and anti-depressants.
People aren’t going to the doctor or dentist near as much, but the abortionists are doing a tidy business.
Finally, the dengue fever and other exotic diseases now in the US thanks to illegals are a hardship but great for business.
Doctors on the other hand are having to ramp up decisions about whether to practice medicine at all in the face of upcoming choices about palliative/end-of-life care for ___% of the population.
I was thinking about this the other day. Under normal circumstances it would be a growth industry. New plants, hiring employees etc. However, what gun business owner is going to invest more money when next month it could be shutdown by changing regulations.
“the people doing the work are drinking way too much.....and are straining under the weight of all those mortgages.”
Which is why I am planning on becoming a bartender and manking scads of money from tips.
Anyone know where there is a state-by-state breakdown of the jobless rates for this same time frame?
The "productivity" parameter is a joke, and it is actually taken seriously by "economists," who are of course also a joke.
If you have one thousand people and five hundred of them are working to keep the prosperity of the society going, OK.
If you have one thousand people and two hundred of them are working to keep the prosperity of the society going, Hmmmm, they might have to be a little more "productive".
If you have one thousand people and fifty of them are working to keep the productive prosperity of the economy going, Ughhh, they better be pretty damn "productive".
At some point one might want to think about jumping the productive bunch and join the crowd.
What a great economic indicator that increased "productivity" is.
So endeth economic lesson No 1 for Barack Obama and associated Communists.
Provided by the Suntrade Institute
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2136635/posts
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