[E. Pluribus Unum]

What exactly do you do when you "leave the job market?"

Stop eating?

[Skooz]

Slanted. Big time.

I heard this reported at the top of the hour news during Rush and could barely believe my ears. This is how a drop in unemployment is reported when a Republican in President.

[theDentist]

With jobs scarce, close to half a million people gave up looking.

When bills are coming in, the kids gotta eat, and you need to keep the roof over your head, people don't give up looking!

[syriacus]

I thought I heard someone on TV say that some people are not going back into the market because they have decided to retire from the rat race.

Remember when boomers were saying they hoped to retire by the time they were 55?

Many baby boomers are into their mid-fifties now.

[VadeRetro]

"Employers remain skeptical. While there are clearly some hopeful signs that the economy is improving, they want to be ... sure that it is not just a flash in the pan," said Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics. "Corporate hiring managers want to see a track record of growth before they make permanent new hires."

People are still analyzing this situation in old-timey ways, stuff Louis Rukeyser could have been saying 25 years ago. They're missing that something new is going on. The jobs that have been lost aren't coming back.

[AsYouAre]

The headline would be exactly the same if Bill Clinton were still President. </sarcasm off>

[Barry Goldwater]

When do CEO jobs start getting outsourced? After all, American CEOs are the most highly compensated in the world by a very large margin. Wouldn't it be cheaper to have a third worlder run a corporation?

[Pylot]

It is hard to detect a quantum change when you are in the middle of it, but I suspect we have seen an entire sector of jobs go that will never come back in their prior form. One out of every five Americans has lost their job in the past five years.

High tech will probably not ever again hit the fevered pitch we observed just a few years ago and we continue to see a constant erosion of our manufacturing base.

Some manufactured products will remain. Those products that are so inexpensive that factory location and distribution are enormous elements in the pricing equation will remain. Paper and chemicals come to mind. Many of the labor intensive products or products with a nasty environmental impact will go. Some other manufactured products will simply price themselves out of this market. Unions may be their own worst enemy.

When Americans get hungry they find somthing else to do. I have run into many former hi tech people who were easily getting 100K five years ago and they are in totally different industries.

As long as the US Government continues to accumulate debt the only viable way for the currency to remain "strong" is for there to be more printed and more circulated. Hence the unholy arrangement with China.

I personally believe that the powers that be know that we are just a few years from totally bankrupting our country so they are just going along and getting what ever they can in the mean time.

[q_an_a]

"who were not currently looking for work because they were discouraged over job prospects. That was up from 405,000 in July 2002 but down slightly from the 478,000 discouraged people reported for June."

Read this again folks and notice the Barbara S in it. Last month the discouraged # was 478,000 this month it is 470,000. Your agenda is showing.

[novacation]

There is always a job for the person who is willing to work.It may not be as nice as the last one, but IF a person has any kind of sense there is always a way to make a living. Of course it depends on your definition of IF.

I can't believe I said that.

[ladyinred]

This just blew my husband and I away when they said this on the news! The liberal media is so afraid that a better economy, and lower unemployment rates will bode too well on President Bush, so they make this outrageous claim when they announce this!! They actually said that people just GAVE UP and quit looking! Can you believe the lengths this lying bunch will go to? What exactly does one do when one "gives up" on finding a job!

[a_Turk]

The jobless rate declined to a two-month low

Yippeeee

The lowest it's been in two months!

We're saved! We're saved!

What a crock of sh!t..

[Brimack34]

What is going to happen at the end of the month when people go back too school? The numbers will be up after the summer jobs go away.