Unnemployment rate unexpectedly soars to 6.1%

CBS Marketwatch ^ | 09/05/2008 | Greg Robb

[Glenn]

Nonfarm payrolls decreased by 84,000, the Labor Department reported Friday. These are more job losses than the 75,000 drop expected by economists surveyed by MarketWatch.

The factory sector, especially the auto industry, shed jobs in August. Employment services, considered a bell whether of future labor market trends, also had sharp losses.

[DouglasKC]

Not bad from a historical perspective.

See historical unemployment rate chart on this page.

[ThePythonicCow]

The labor force fell by 8,000 in August.

This is a very strong indicator of a recession, when the number of workers is down from last month. Usually, through strong times and weaker times, the number of workers keeps growing, just at different rates. An outright decline strongly implies a recession.

[Tarpon]

Country first, not Communism first.

The woman who skins moose, cut down Zeus

And when they got there,

The temple was bare,

It was all built of styrofoam.

[DB]

Raising the minimum wage also takes a toll on employment.

[ThePythonicCow]

This should make for an interesting day in the market.

Yes - very interesting. For someone who is short the DOW, short the S&P500, short the financials and long gold, finally I might have a day with nice gains across the board. About time. The waters are still treacherous, and no doubt will continue whipsawing anyone not sensible enough to just sit on the sidelines in savings accounts or T-bills. But it's nice to have a day now and then where one gets on the right side of things.

Sweet.

[ThePythonicCow]

Raising the minimum wage also takes a toll on employment.

Yup - when low wages are illegal, only illegals will have low wages.

[woweeitsme]

Gee...you don’t think this rise in unemployment has anything to do with the increase in the minimum wage, do you?

[DB]

I’d guess the unemployment rate is going to be rising even faster in the MSM jobs department as well all things considered over the last week...

[Tarpon]

What do you think businesses are doing to make up the lost money spent on fuel? The lost customers who won't drive to your place of business? It's deserted at the stores around here, more help than customers. It was only a matter of time before the employees had to go. Look at the devastated auto industry.

Oil driven recession, the liberal love it. Save the planet. Pay more in taxes so government can pretend to control the weather.

Just yesterday, the city said taxes had to go up 20% so the city could keep going, hire more people. Exactly where are the people who live here supposed to get the money? We have the same nincompoops here as is in Washington.

[wbill]

The jobless rate rose for a clear-cut reason - because people lost jobs

There's a Captain Obvious moment right there. Talk about incisive analysis.

[kabar]

Those “American jobs” would probably be filled by illegal Mexicans.

[Red Badger]

Soars?..............I remember when 6.1% would have been heaven...............

[ThePythonicCow]

Not bad from a historical perspective.

Unfortunately, one cannot simply compare numerical rates across long periods of time. The government keeps "refining" the number, usually in such a way that the number gets lower.

[SueRae]

Lots of dinosaur media contributed to the increase

[kabar]

The number of unemployed persons rose by 592,000 to 9.4 million in August, and the unemployment rate increased by 0.4 percentage point to 6.1 percent. Over the past 12 months, the number of unemployed persons has increased by 2.2 million and the unemployment rate has risen by 1.4 percentage points, with most of the increase occurring over the past 4 months.

In August, the unemployment rates for adult men (5.6 percent), adult women (5.3 percent), whites (5.4 percent), blacks (10.6 percent), and Hispanics (8.0 percent) rose, while the jobless rate for teenagers was little changed at 18.9 percent. The unemployment rate for Asians was 4.4 percent in August, not seasonally adjusted.

[Cracker Jack]

The labor force fell by 8,000 in August.

Maybe. These numbers are usually released quickly, then revised later as more data comes in. These numbers often look worse for the republicans before they are revised. Do you suppose there are any civil service bureaucrats that would tweak the initial numbers to help Obama?

[ThePythonicCow]

What do you think businesses are doing to make up the lost money spent on fuel?

Lay off, close less profitable locations, cut back, ...

Yup.

With good patriotic Americans like our left, losing our wars, destroying our economy, regulating away our liberty and taking our property ... who needs enemies?

[Tarpon]

It's always to ‘extras’ that get cut first. Food price rise here has made it hard to mkae ends meet, much less go out and eat. Steak prices are now in the $15-20 a pound range. The local restaurants are almost totally deserted. I have a friend just a few houses down who owns one of the most popular local seafood restaurants, he says it's bad, he says he is laying off more people almost every week..

It's sad ... when you let liberals run your life, you are bound to be miserable.

[IYAS9YAS]

Gee, it couldn’t have anything to do with people going back to school, could it?

[ThePythonicCow]

Actually, from what I can tell (which isn't much) the numbers were too good (understating unemployment) the last few months and might be getting closer to real with these numbers.

But yeah, one can trust government numbers about as much as one can trust the testimony of an alcoholic in denial as to how much they drink.