Keith Hall: ‘One of the Worst’ Job Reports
EmailABC News’ Z. Byron Wolf reports from Capitol Hill: Every month when the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases its jobs report, there is a hearing by the Joint Economy Committee on Capitol Hill with BLS Commissioner Keith Hall.
There are rarely made-for-TV moments as Hall, a number cruncher, reads his report. That’s about it. Congressmen and Senators will try to get him to prognosticate on the market as a whole, but Hall is a jobs man and that’s all he’ll talk about.
But today — after Hall told the committee the U.S. lost 533,000 jobs in November — was an exception.
In an exchange with Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-MD, Hall said , "If I were to characterize this jobs report I would say it’s very dismal… it’s maybe one of the worst that the BLS has ever produced."
"Ever?" asked Cummings.
"Ever," replied Hall.
Cummings asked how long the BLS has been around and the answer was 124 years.
Hall compared the current recession to the 2001 recession, which he said was more centered on the tech industry and so not as hard on the economy as a whole. Jobs losses now, he said, are distributed across the entire job market and economy, which is more focused on consumer spending.
But Hall might have been overstating just a little bit. This is the sixth worst jobs report since 1929 and the worst since 1974. So its the sixth worst not counting the Great Depression.
Still not good news.
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Posted by: please! | December 5, 2008, 10:54 am 10:54 am
Looks like the job situation will improve some soon. If we don’t do something about foreclosures, we are going to need a lot of public housing built. Courthouses around the country are having auction days with five or six lawyers auctioning off houses at the same time, all day long.
Posted by: Ron | December 5, 2008, 10:56 am 10:56 am
One more gift from George Bush, the president who keeps on giving. Not that anything is his responsibility, of course. Just ask him.
Posted by: brandon102 | December 5, 2008, 11:16 am 11:16 am
One comment I thought Keith Hall made about this downturn of economy was mostly due to the lack of consumer spending. Duh!!! Lets see, lets look at it this way. First they said it was the foreclosures, but I think the collapse was coming for a while. We have been shipping our work out the country for a long time, (plants moving to other countries). There is a loss of jobs, income, tax base, and then the ones losing their jobs, collecting assistance from their state. Finally settling for a lesser paying job to survive. On the consumer spending remark. If we weren’t being robbed at the pumps for the last two years, maybe we would have had money to spend. My family alone was spending upwards of $400.00 more a month in gas. Times that figure with every household in the U.S. and it comes to a considerable amount of cash. Maybe some of the foreclosures could have been avoided had people had the money the oil companies were syphoning out of our wallets. I could see an increase in price, but 250-300% increase was a ripoff. So…..Mr. Keith Hall. Maybe if we had the MONEY we would have spent it. And maybe if Washington wasn’t sleeping, while our wallets were being pilfered. All of this mess could have been adverted.
Sincerely, RJones-a true knucklehead, also a recently laid off United States Steelworker, USWA Local 1899
Posted by: Randy Jones | December 5, 2008, 6:02 pm 6:02 pm
Obama said his plan would put millions of people to work by “making the single largest new investment in our national infrastructure since the creation of the federal highway system in the 1950s.”
So Obama is going to make a “large
new investment in our national
infrastructure”!
I thought that was the purpose of the
Highway Trust Fund and individual
tolls collected by the states!
Where has that money gone?
Before we commit more taxpayer dollars
to repair our roads and bridges we
ought to find out who’s been pocketing the money that was supposed to be spent
on roads and bridges!
The Toll Money Must be Accounted for
before any Additional Taxpayer Funds
are spent on our roads and bridges!
Posted by: reaganfan | December 6, 2008, 1:47 pm 1:47 pm
reaganfan – it isn’t hard to see that source of revenue hasn’t provided the necessary construction. It keeps the highways paved, but doesn’t really provide what’s needed for bridge replacement, etc. And the number of bridges that need replaced continue to climb.
We want this stuff – we want to be able to drive across a bridge safely – but we need to understand this stuff costs more than we’ve been paying thus far.
So we have two dynamics overlapping – infrastructure that needs work, and people who need work. So Obama seems set to go with a jobs program for infrastructure.
I’m not sure if this is the best idea or not. I’m willing to acknowledge the old truisms may not be true anymore – I tend to be more libertarian than anything, so for me its a big acknowledgement.
Posted by: Paul | December 7, 2008, 12:18 pm 12:18 pm