This Is Progress? Jobs Data Optimism Obscures Harsh Reality

Yahoo Finance ^ | 12/04/2009 | Chris Nichols

[ErnstStavroBlofeld]

If you still have a job, maybe Friday's numbers from the Labor Department will give you a chance to exhale.

Since the recession began in December 2007, the employment market, for the most part, has been one negative headline after another. Now, we've learned that the U.S. lost only 11,000 jobs in November, that the unemployment rate surprisingly ticked down from 10.2% the previous month to only 10%, and that for the prior two months the total of jobs lost actually wasn't as bad as initially thought.

The last time the data were so bright, if they can be called that, was in December 2007, when the economy added 120,000 jobs. Yet despite pockets of optimism on Wall Street following the latest reading, the truth is that for many workers in America, these are dark days.

As of now, more than 15 million people around the country remain out of luck. Beyond the 10% headline number in joblessness, the situation is actually worse. Factoring in people who have stopped looking for work and those in part-time positions who want a full-time job, the "underemployment" rate is 17.2%. In fairness, that was down from 17.5% in October, but it remains a daunting swath of the U.S. workforce struggling to make ends meet.

[Nosterrex]

I am a little fuzzy on the math. Last month the unemployment was 10.2%. We lost 11,000 more jobs and the unemployment decreased by .2%. I do not understand how this can be. I must be missing something here. I am having a difficult time understand how an increase becomes a decrease.

[TwelveOfTwenty]

I believe the the last 2 reports have been revised corrected.

Of course, even allowing for Freepers' distrust of the Obama administration, determining unemployment numbers in a nation of 300,000,000 isn't an exact science, and this can happen.

[Nosterrex]

Thanks for the information. I cannot speak for the rest of the nation, but I have not seen a decrease of unemployment where I live. My wife works for the state employment agency, and she said it was the first time she can ever remember when there were absolutely no jobs listed. Our state has a hiring freeze, and that only creates more unemployment. It is bleak where we live.