Free Republic

As the media begins to draw a pretty picture about the November jobs report, namely that unemployment has dropped to 4.6 percent, its lowest level in nine years, they are unlikely to tell you the other part of the story. The labor force participation rate continues to decline and is stuck at a rate we haven't seen since February 1978, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It gets worse. Last month, we lost 4,000 manufacturing jobs, offering more damage to the already 301,000 we've lost since President Obama took office. The Republican National Committee says that is going to change under President-elect...

On Wednesday morning, the parent company said it will sell some small-group business lines to National General Holdings Corp. but exit the individual-health lines that are based in Milwaukee at 501 W. Michigan St. The first phase of job reductions at Assurant Health will occur this summer and impact an estimated 300 employees of approximately 1,700 positions in Milwaukee and other locations, Assurant Inc. said. Assurant Inc. said it will exit the health-insurance market over the next 18 months. ... Assurant Health has been losing money the past two years, and Assurant Inc. executives cited the challenges of running Assurant’s...

More than 300 Chicago-area jobs will be lost when electronics retailer TigerDirect closes all but three of its 34 stores, including four Chicago-area locations and a distribution center. About 40 employees at each location will be cut, a spokeswoman said. Stores in Orland Park, Hoffman Estates, Naperville and Vernon Hills are among those closing. According to the latest Illinois Warn report, layoffs will occur at the retail locations May 9. A distribution center adjacent to the Naperville store will also be shuttered, with 172 workers scheduled to be laid off June 8.

The shocking announcement that Microsoft is cutting 18,000 jobs is still sinking in. Most of those employees do not have a realistic chance of obtaining as good a job as the one they are losing. In the United States, the number of engineering jobs has been sharply declining. In 2002 the number of electrical engineering jobs in the United States was 385,000, but despite increased demand for technology, the job total dropped to only 300,000 last year. And that number is not even for American workers, because thousands of these jobs are soaked up by the H-1B visa racket,...

Hopefully, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell and the rest of the GOP are not going to follow their SOP of coming out strong and ending flat on the Keystone XL Pipeline announcement. This is the one bulletproof issue they need to get back on track. I hope they will not end up staring at their shoes again, while the President turns Wednesday’s announcement into an election season win. Jay Carney said that the Whitehouse says they hasn’t had enough time to adequately review the issue. Really?  How long did it take the administration to review Solyndra?For those who live in the...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: In three weeks and one day the 100-watt incandescent light bulb will be illegal. In three weeks and one day it will be illegal to sell a 100-watt incandescent light bulb. And who did this? The federal government. The federal government, under the auspices of a hoax, mankind global warming. You know, I've been staying in a lot of hotels lately, been doing a little traveling, and hotels are like a lot of other businesses, they just run scared of any regulatory agency. Nobody stands up to regulatory agency, and you can understand it. So you walk...

Out of work? Behind on your bills? Defaulting on your mortgage, maybe? If so, you no doubt did not hold a government job before getting canned. Some 2½ years after the start of the recession, the evidence is now clear: The private-sector economy took a severe blow -- but public-sector workers were spared. In fact, their numbers actually grew, albeit slightly. This stark picture clearly reflects upside-down priorities -- particularly if officials care about boosting the truly productive parts of the economy. Start with a few telling statistics: From January 2008 to January 2010, private-sector jobs plunged from 115.5 million...

Despite the Gulf regions economy being damaged from the seemingly endless oil spill, President Obama has implemented a six month moratorium on drilling in the region. This ban on drilling is estimated to cost 120,000 people their jobs, as some oil companies may be relocating to more energy friendly areas. According to Wood Mackenzie Research and Consulting, the six month moratorium will result in the following: * The 33 drilling platforms which support some 1,400 workers, offshore and onshore will be forced to shut down * As many as 46,200 jobs could be idled by the moratorium (continued)

"Health Law Bans New Doctor-Owned Hospitals, Blocks Expansion of Existing Ones" SNIPPET: "The rules fall under Title VI, Section 6001 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The provision is titled “Physician Ownership and Other Transparency – Limitations on Medicare Exceptions to the Prohibition on Certain Physician Referral for Hospitals.” More than 60 doctor-owned hospitals across the country that were in the development stage will be canceled, said Molly Sandvig, executive director of Physician Hospitals of America (PHA). “That’s a lot of access to communities that will be denied,” Sandvig told CNSNews.com. “The existing hospitals are greatly affected. They...

Well can you see a brand new day! All that hope and change has resulted in only 36,000 people losing their jobs according to Sen. Harry Reid on Friday March 5, 2010. Can I get an Amen! It must have taken the best Democrat Orwellian wordsmiths to come up with that concept Harry. “Job lost is good!” Yay! And here’s some more good news America, only 112,000 families lost their homes last month. I’m sure Democrats are just giddy about that “good” news too. After all it could have been much worst under George Bush. (irony intended) (see 7sec.video)

Nonfarm payroll employment continued to fall sharply in February (-651,000), and the unemployment rate rose from 7.6 to 8.1 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Payroll employment has declined by 2.6 million in the past 4 months. In February, job losses were large and widespread across nearly all major industry sectors.

I am getting really sick of the Mexican Invasion costing so many jobs in the Southwest Virginia- East Tennessee area. My husband is a brickmason. He is the 5th generation mason in his family- our son is the 6th. Up until just a couple of years ago brickmasons had contractors ringing their phones off of the wall wanting them to do work for them. My husband had to turn down dozens of callers because he couldn't do it all. Things have sure changed . Now, a lot of contractors in this area have gotten dollar signs in their eyes and...

Petition To Kerry: Bring jobs back to the U.S.A. Dear Kerry, I am writing to you to ask you to bring back the plants that your wife has located in countries outside of the United States. I find it hypocritical that you do not like off shore companies and your claiming that the Bush administration is sending jobs abroad. Well, it seems that the Heinz Corporation, owned by your wife, has 79 plants where it manufacturers products, and 57 of the 79 are located in countries outside of the U.S. How many U.S. jobs are lost here? Check it out...

Over and over we have heard the Democrat mantra of "3 million jobs lost under Pres. Bush." Can someone link me to one or more websites answering this charge? I HAVE heard that the # derives from the BLS's count of "payroll employment," and therefore that it assumes that anyone leaving an employee position, who does not get another such position, disappears from the labor force. In short, it excludes the millions of people who leave the payroll of, say, IBM, and go into business for themselves or into a partnership -- but not on a "payroll" as an employee....