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<p>Private employers added only 38,000 jobs in May, down sharply from the 177,000 new jobs in May and significantly less than economists' expectation of 100,000 new jobs, according to the ADP National Employment Report released Wednesday morning.</p> <p>"This is a disappointing report ... reflecting a troubling (economic) environment, that's for sure," said Joel Prakken, chairman of Macroeconomic Advisers LLC, which does the report based on ADP's payroll data for 550,000 U.S. employers.</p>

Private-sector employment posted its biggest improvement in three years last month, according to a report issued Wednesday, while separate data showed the biggest increase in job cuts in eight months. Payrolls among private employers rose by 93,000 in November, the 10th consecutive month of increases, payroll processor ADP said in its report. The jump was bigger than economists had expected. The ADP employment report was expected to show a gain of 58,000 jobs in November, according to the Briefing.com consensus of economist forecasts. In addition, the October gain was revised by nearly double to 82,000 from the originally reported 43,000....

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Companies hired more workers in July but the gains are too slow to reduce unemployment and spur the economy significantly, reports showed on Wednesday. The reports come two days before the government's more comprehensive jobs reading for the month and illustrate that while the economy's improving, the jobs market has a long way to go. U.S. private employers added 42,000 jobs in July, payrolls processor ADP Employer Services reported, slightly more than economists forecast but still a tepid figure. Separately, the Institute for Supply Management reported increased growth in the services sector in July, while its...

Lost amid the heated debate over U.S. policy is a key point: Immigrant entrepreneurs and skilled workers are a boon to the economy. Arizona may be ground zero for the conflict over U.S. immigration policy, but it takes only a few minutes of watching cable television news and scanning local op-ed pages to see how raw and divisive the matter has become in the nation's political sphere. Yet with all the heated rhetoric about illegals, border security, amnesty, racial profiling, and other incendiary topics, one aspect of immigration isn't emphasized enough: the job-creating potential of immigrant entrepreneurs. They're the vanguard...

Citing what he believes are clear signs the economy is bouncing back from recession, Vice-President Joe Biden yesterday touted Barack Obama's 'stimulus package' and bailout of Wall Street. Time for yet another fact-check on the pathological liars of the Obama Administration. Banks are failing at double the rate of last year. During 2009, which the government claims was the peak of the recession, the total number of bank failures at this point in the year was 40. It is already 83 for this year. Yet the FDIC is running ads on radio stations across the country attempting to scare people...

When workers become more efficient, it's normally a good thing. But lately, it has acted as a powerful brake on job creation. And the question of whether the recent surge in productivity has run its course is the key to whether job growth is finally poised to take off. One of the great surprises of the economic downturn that began 27 months ago is this: Businesses are producing only 3 percent fewer goods and services than they were at the end of 2007, yet Americans are working nearly 10 percent fewer hours because of a mix of layoffs and cutbacks...

There is a consensus among economic forecasters -- government, academic, private sector, and bloggers -- that the current economic expansion will probably be characterized as a “jobless recovery” much like in the prior cycle -- or at the very least, that decreases in the unemployment rate will be very slow and drawn out. Indeed, a vocal but influential minority of analysts believe that there will be no substantial decreases in unemployment at all during 2010. Don’t count me as part of this pessimistic consensus. I believe that there is substantial data to suggest that the recovery in employment will be...

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama's top economic advisers offered a cautious forecast on Thursday that U.S. job gains for 2010 will average 95,000 a month, with analysts expecting hiring to expand by spring. In a conference call with reporters on Wednesday, Christina Romer , the head of the White House Council of Economic Advisers , said that the administration's projection is below the consensus of private Blue Chip forecasters, who envision a more optimistic monthly average of 116,000 jobs. "We're very much in the range of other forecasters. Going forward, we expect that to pick up, we think it's very...

WASHINGTON – Declaring "I don't quit,'" an embattled President Barack Obama vowed in his first State of the Union address Wednesday night to make job growth his topmost priority for the year and urged a divided Congress to come together around new stimulus spending and short-term economic relief. He said he would still pursue ambitious longer-term changes to health care, energy, education and beyond. "Change has not come fast enough," Obama said before a politician-packed House chamber and a TV audience of millions. "I do not accept second-place for the United States of America. As hard as it may be,...

For most of this country, this recession been a tough one. Chances are If you haven't lost a job you know someone who has. The real unemployment number (including people who are no longer getting unemployment dollars or have given up looking) is over 17%. Many many who have kept their jobs, have lost income either through pay cuts or unpaid furloughs. There is one group of people who have had nothing but good news. People working for the federal government have seen their salaries skyrocket. Not surprisingly, the number of people working for the federal bureaucracy has grown as...

California: While Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger worries about rising seas, his state sinks below the waves. Don't mess with Texas, they say. But California and the nation could follow its lead. Last Wednesday, Gov. Schwarzenegger released a new report based on research compiled by the California Energy Commission claiming that by 2100 San Francisco Bay would be more bay than San Francisco, with Fisherman's Wharf and Treasure Island under the rising waters of climate change. His show-and-tell, which included a new Google Earth application the commission spent $150,000 to help develop, goes a long way toward explaining the once-Golden State's slide...

I was thinking about Keith Hennessey’s post of Thursday on the implications of the OMB forecast on unemployment. The OMB forecast says that in the fourth quarter of 2010, the unemployment rate will be 9.7%. Inspired by Hennessey’s work, I decided to write a small spreadsheet. My goal: what does the forecast say about the number of jobs created? Here’s a screen cap of the spreadsheet: Let me explain each column. The source of this data is the Current Population Survey from BLS. Data projected is italicized. The two bold numbers for unemployment rates are the projections from the OMB...

The paradox of the year is why so many Americans tell pollsters they feel bad about an economy that's been so good, with solid job growth and corporate profits, rising wages and home prices, and a huge decline in the budget deficit. Perhaps one reason is because the media keep saying the economy stinks. That's the conclusion of... the Media Research Center, which finds that so far this year 62% of the news stories on the Big Three TV networks have portrayed the U.S. economy in negative fashion. The "negative full length TV news stories on the economy outnumbered positive...

I live in Fairfax California. I have been for most of my life. I am fed up with the economy, the blackouts the crime and all the liberals. I am thinking of moving and I was wondering if any of you know a good place for an average joe like myself to live in. In a couple weeks I'll have enough money and I can take the greyhound out of here and move out of this dump. Im looking for a place where I can get jobs, not have nasty taxes, some good public transportation in a city and to...

Two months later than planned, federal officials are finally ready to start taking applications for an additional 20,000 H-1B visas. The extra visas were approved last fall by Congress MAY 09, 2005 (COMPUTERWORLD) - Federal officials will finally open the doors to an additional 20,000 foreign workers under the H-1B visa program beginning Thursday, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) agency announced last week. The start of the application process for the new visas comes after a two-month delay and some controversy over the eligibility requirements for applicants. The USCIS, which sets immigration policies and rules on visa and...

Employers added only 78,000 workers to their payrolls last month, the weakest job growth in 21 months, the government said on Friday in a report that fanned worries on Wall Street over a slowing economy. The disappointing job growth -- less than half what analysts had forecast -- pushed government bond prices up sharply and spurred a brief sell-off in the dollar as traders guessed the Federal Reserve may soon end to its year-long campaign of interest-rate hikes. The news, however, was not entirely bearish as the unemployment rate in May edged down to 5.1 percent, its lowest since September...

The Bush administration has significantly scaled back expectations of U.S. job growth, reflecting continued hesitancy on the part of employers and robust growth in output per worker. The White House said it expects nonfarm employment to rise 2.1 million next year to an annual average of 133.4 million. In February, it had projected 3.6 million more jobs in 2005. To achieve its new projection, employment growth should average 175,000 a month in 2005, according to the forecast, which was jointly developed by the Council of Economic Advisers, the Treasury Department and the Office of Management and Budget.

By Claudia Grisales AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF Friday, August 20, 2004 Central Texas in July saw its highest job growth rate in three years despite a sluggish job market in the rest of the country. There were 4,800 more jobs in the region last month than in July 2003, a 0.7 percent increase, according to the Texas Workforce Commission. July was the sixth consecutive month of positive job growth and the best rate since May 2001, when it was 1.2 percent. The region's unemployment rate in July was 4.7 percent. Job growth in the region, which includes Travis, Williamson, Hays, Caldwell and...

WASHINGTON, DC — Today, United States Congressman Richard Burr (R-NC) issued the following statement: "One thing you will not hear John Kerry talking about when he visits North Carolina on Friday will be the 35,400 jobs created in the month of June thanks to the President’s pro-growth agenda. John Kerry travels the country laying out proposals he claims will be paid for by rolling back the Bush Tax Cuts; the numbers just do not add up. We still do not know how John Kerry will pay for all of this new spending. We know, however, that John Kerry has spent...