(10 am. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
The deeper and longer the recession goes on, the more questionable the numbers get.
Today the headline number was a loss of 85,000 jobs in December and a steady unemployment rate of 10%.
The market only expected to lose 3,000 jobs, so this was a negative report. However, like most unemployment reports, the Devil is in the details.
By far the largest change in the employment numbers was the number of people no longer in the workforce. Using the non-seasonally adjusted numbers 1,027,000 people stopped being counted as part of the labor force last month even though 321,000 of them say they still want a job.
Even the seasonally adjusted numbers show an increase of 843,000 people no longer counted as part of the labor force.
These numbers completely dwarf the headline numbers. That’s how the seasonally-adjusted number of unemployed people could drop by 73,000, but the unemployment rate doesn’t move.
If these people who wanted a job were still counted as part of the labor force then the unemployment rate would rise to 10.2%. If all of the them were counted as part of the labor force then the unemployment rate would rise to 10.5%.
The number of unemployed people actually collecting unemployment benefits has never been higher.
The more broad U-6 unemployment number rose from 16.4% to 17.1%.
The silver-lining in this report was that companies were adding temporary workers.
Temporary help services added 47,000 jobs in December. Since reaching a low point in July, temporary help services employment has risen by 166,000.
The thinking is that when business starts picking up companies will add temporary workers before they add permanent workers. This is correct, but with one big caveat – before companies add temporary workers they will add work to their current workers.
Average weekly hourly earnings declined again. Hours worked was flat.
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for the long-term unemployed.
My last regular paycheck was in August of 2006.
My fledgling consultancy is starting to bring in a little money, but most of it goes right back into food or bills or the need to set up aspects of the business. I’m happy to be doing what I love again, and VERY happy to be doing it 100% on my own terms. Which means anyone who tries to harass me now will get the kick in the ass they richly deserve.
And I mean anyone.
I’m making 40% less than I was 2 years ago. We all took big paycuts to stay in business.
Good times. Sigh.
I have never before been out of work. I have never collected unemployment before. The unemployment extensions help a great deal. I’m finding ways to get through this and got a teaching gig with my cousin that will pay cash beginning next week. I also started writing grants and am applying to graduate school for my MFA in Creative Writing – Fiction. In some ways I’m glad for the collapse. My philosophy of life has changed and I am seeing the ‘road less traveled’ as the road i always wanted to walk on and have found my way back…i’m taking the ‘one door closes and another opens’ approach and finding my way through.
I do not see things changing for the better in the near future for the economy. The Fed can’t print money infinitely. Congress is infinitely stupid. Our tax system is regressive. Obama is an incrementalist at best and a neoliberal at heart. Neoliberalism has polluted every corner of govt. and the private sector including the military. Our taxes fund this military ‘machine’. These are not only depressing times, they are very dangerous as to what precedents we are setting for the future.
A very large corporate unwritten, not talked about unseen no work system. Are job applications sorted out electronically by unseen means? Is age discrimination routine yet unseen, built into the screening process at will. All of these job fairs I have been to? All older people.
Expected it to pick up after the holidays. Definitely not the case.