Jan 6, 2012 11:13am
Dec. Jobs Report: Good News, Bad News
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We know the good news from Friday’s jobs report. December had the most jobs added since September 2011 and the lowest unemployment rate since Feb-March 2009. For all of 2011, the economy added 1.6 million jobs, better than the 940,000 added in 2010.
The economy must add about 200,000 to 250,000 jobs every month to get the unemployment rate down below 8 percent.
THE GOOD SIGNS:
- Manufacturing – After four months of little change, the manufacturing sector added 23,000 jobs. These are generally highly productive good jobs and a sign that the economy is growing.
- Wage growth – The average hourly earnings for all employees in the private sector rose by 4 cents or 0.2 percent in December. This isn’t huge growth, but may be a slow crawl toward more robust growth so Americans will have more money to spend.
- Hours worked – The average workweek for employees in the private sector grew 0.1 hour to 34.4 hours a week. This again is not huge growth but could mean that there is more work and more demand in the economy that will eventually lead to employers hiring more people to do the work.
THE BAD SIGNS:
- Long-term unemployed – There was little change in the long-term unemployed. Of the country’s 13.1 million unemployed, 42.5 percent or 5.6 million have been out of work for six months or longer. These millions of people risk being left behind as the rest of the economy moves forward.
- Labor force participation – This is the rate at which people are entering the work force, and it did not change in the month of December. A real measure of growth may be that people are coming into the labor force in large numbers and getting jobs quickly. We are not seeing that right now.
- Last year looked about the same – At this time last year there was considerable optimism about the health of the U.S. jobs market. The unemployment rate seemed to be coming down and the economy was adding jobs. Then came the earthquake in Japan, the gridlock in Washington and the economic crisis in Europe. While we have good news today, it needs to last several months before we can be sure that there are again more jobs in the U.S. economy.
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Unemployment figures ought to be dropped as an indicator as to how the economy is performing. A better measure would be private sector average salary. If the number of people working increases, but the average salary remains constant or diminishes, then there’s no improvement in the economy.
Posted by: john locke | January 6, 2012, 12:52 pm 12:52 pm
One way Washington could help the economy, create jobs and sustain jobs, is to remove the penalties for all the WORKING people who have had to file to collect early Social Security to help them get by. This money (early Social Security money) will be SPENT and that will help create and sustain jobs, the thing this country needs the most right NOW.
Posted by: RalphF | January 6, 2012, 1:04 pm 1:04 pm
@JohnLocke — that makes absolutely no sense at all…
Posted by: RalphF | January 6, 2012, 1:07 pm 1:07 pm
Seriously??? Someone needs to check to see if the lady really had to go to college to “report” this jobs information. Companies hire in December for the Christmas season. HEEELLLOOO!!! It happens every year. I was one of those seasonal hires at Fedex and now guess what? I’m not employeed again. Guess what? I bet the number of unemployed goes up for January. Just a wild guess. Let’s see how the MSM reports that figure.
Posted by: Zman | January 6, 2012, 1:13 pm 1:13 pm
5.6 million people will become drug dealers and/or do odd end jobs under the table.
Posted by: JOHN DOE | January 6, 2012, 1:25 pm 1:25 pm
@JohnLocke — that makes absolutely no sense at all…
—that’s just a measure of how many people chose to go into low paying profressions. IF you’re an engineer, you’ll make more than a clerk. So you think the measure of the economy is how many engineers you have????? I think that’s a measure of how lazy your people are in getting educations that will get them good jobs, and yes, that is a problem with americans today. They ARE too lazy to go to school for the hard majors.
Posted by: Not UR Average Joe | January 6, 2012, 1:27 pm 1:27 pm
“One way Washington could help the economy, create jobs and sustain jobs, is to remove the penalties for all the WORKING people who have had to file to collect early Social Security to help them get by.” Or the penality for people having to take out money from their 401(K) plans early.
Posted by: MyTake | January 6, 2012, 1:29 pm 1:29 pm
@ZMAN, check out the Bureau of Labor and Statistics website to see how they account for seasonal variations in the unemployment rate.
Posted by: MEPace | January 6, 2012, 1:32 pm 1:32 pm
To most of the population, any improvement is good. Of course the GOP will not be happy about this.
Makes you wonder how much it would improve if we had a GOP that could say something besides NO.
Posted by: carolo | January 6, 2012, 1:39 pm 1:39 pm
Long term unemployment will continue to be a problem, as companies still refuse to hire anyone who isn’t currently working. The economy will continue to get worse as more and more people become unemployed because there’s less and less money to be spent, even on necessities.
Companies will continue to see declining profits and declining demand for their products, which will force them to cut corners by decreasing their workforce, whom are no longer needed because demand is down. This will add MORE unemployed people, some of whom will quickly become part of this country’s demographic who are seen as “broken” by companies because nobody will hire them.
America is committing economic suicide, because the very people who would benefit from a low unemployment rate are totally incapable of looking out for their own best interests.
Posted by: AmericaThePitiful | January 6, 2012, 1:45 pm 1:45 pm
The good news is we have a chance to get rid of this administration in November. The bad news is there are still enough people that did not get enough of him the first round.
Posted by: specialty57 | January 6, 2012, 1:52 pm 1:52 pm
go to Dept of Labor website to see all of the data and the truth, not the press release which is caca de toro. Solis and Obama are big time liars, there were NO new net jobs created in december
Posted by: rolandotx2 | January 6, 2012, 3:18 pm 3:18 pm
RolandDotX2 (3:18 PM); We don’t talk about jobs “lost” here. I think the UE numbers in the next couple months will tell the real story. If if stays at 8.5% or drops lower I’ll be a believer.
Posted by: newcountryman | January 6, 2012, 4:02 pm 4:02 pm
REALLY….UNEMPLOYMENT DROPS THE MONTH OF DECEMBER? DOES THE GOVERNMENT THINK WE ARE THAT STUPID? eVERY YEAR COMPANIES HIRE EMPLOYEES FOR THE HOLIDAY SEASON. WELL, HOLIDAY SEASON IS OVER AND THE STORES ARE BACK TO BEING EMPTY SO WILL THEY REALLY KEEP THESE EMPLOYEES? SAME OLD BS TALK AS WE GET SCREWED AS EACH DAY PASSES
Posted by: rach | January 6, 2012, 5:10 pm 5:10 pm
Yo MEPACE. Please do not try and direct me to one of Obama’s lying govt. websites on labor stats. I spent 32 years in the private sector in operations and engineering for a worldwide transportation company. I went back to Fedex in December to use my talents and hoping for a permanent position.I know how these numbers are gathered and reported. Obviously you do not. I am am sorry you are such a mis-informed and lead by the nose person. Good luck in this life. You will surely need it.
Posted by: Zman | January 6, 2012, 5:31 pm 5:31 pm
Well, our prayers were answered. A family member got the call a few days ago. A permanent job. Better pay than the last one and benefits. We are all breathing a little easier in this corner of the world. Lots more to do. Hope this trend is continuing.
Posted by: AmericanLady | January 6, 2012, 5:49 pm 5:49 pm
ZMAN: HELLO, most of the holiday hiring occurred between september and November. Now there will be a letting go of seasonal employees. Most of the job growth occurred in professional services.
Posted by: emerald_sparks | January 6, 2012, 6:17 pm 6:17 pm
In reference to Diane’s topic on jobs:
The University of Mississippi Medical Center has plans to lay off over 150 employees this month! This is the largest hospital in the state of Mississippi as well as one of the largest in the south. This hospital is a “teaching” hospital for medical students and nurses.
The jobs are going down!
Posted by: Mark Peoples | January 6, 2012, 6:39 pm 6:39 pm
This is bologna! Long term unemployed are no longer collecting from unemployment funds….that’s all this reflects. Too many people are still unemployed and more are coming with layoffs at KMart, Sears and Bloomingdales. Where are the industrial jobs? Where are the jobs that pay more than 2 to 3 times poverty level?
Posted by: Gandalf | January 6, 2012, 7:09 pm 7:09 pm
Finally! An objective article on the December jobs figures. ABC news gets it right more often than others. All it takes is a simple google search of historical labor force participation rates, ADP employment reports, and, we see we are not any better than its been before. The only thing that can be said is that things could be much worse. Still, 11.2% unemployment (the real rate when we apply the real labor force participation rate) is not good.
Posted by: Mike Allen | January 6, 2012, 7:36 pm 7:36 pm
The U6 unemployment rate fell to 15.2 %. This number is much closer to the numer that would have been calculated before Clinton changed the computation.
Posted by: deanbob | January 7, 2012, 9:06 am 9:06 am
Unemployment is down, what a joke. The reason it is reported as down is because there are so many people standing in line just waiting to get signed up. I have been in a line for over a week and never made it to the head of the line so I can even be counted as unemployed. Every day there are hundeds of unemployed people ahead of me in the line and hundreds of people behind me in the line to sign up. The reason it is reported as down is because there are so many who just wait in a line to start collecting unemployment. The system is overflowing with people just waiting to sign up.
Posted by: Bob101 | January 7, 2012, 9:16 am 9:16 am
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics,
When G.W. Bush first started as President in January 2001, 137,778,000 Americans were employed. Just after the Democrats took over Congress in January 2007, employment was 146,028,000, a net gain of 8.25 million jobs in 6 years. With Bush as President and a Republican Congress, the US was adding 1.375 million jobs per year.
Employment dropped after the Dems took over, but when Bush left office 142,187,000 Americans still had a job. Despite the bumbling of the Democratic Congress, Bush still added a total of 4.4 million jobs in his 8 years, that’s a net GAIN of 550,000 jobs per year.
Here’s what has happened to employment since Obama took over.
January 2009, 142,187,000 (when Obama took over)
January 2010, 138,500,000
January 2011, 139,330,000 (Republicans take back the House)
December 2012, 140,790,000
Despite a small recovery since the Republicans took back the House, FEWER Americans have a job now than when Obama took over.
Obama is averaging a LOSS of 450,000 jobs per year.
Posted by: meab | January 8, 2012, 11:46 am 11:46 am
What to see a chart of the job loss picture, Google: .. . . . . . . . . . THE SCARIEST JOBS CHART EVER
Posted by: deanbob | January 9, 2012, 8:57 am 8:57 am