From Unemployment rate falls to 8.6% in November The Labor Department announced this morning that unemployment dropped from 9% to 8.6% last month. While 120,000 net jobs were created in November, keep in mind that 315,000 people have given up looking for work, and are no longer included in the unemployment statistic. Good news on the surface, and the markets seem to be reacting positively. Thoughts?
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I think it is psychologically beneficial to see this number go down, but I think the bulk of the decline is people giving up looking for work. When you have growth in the number of people on government assistance and lowering unemployment you can see it isn't absorption into the labor market that is causing the decline.
This is a good talking point politically. It is easy to point to 8.6% and compare it to 10.1% and say "look, I've done something". Most Americans don't care or don't understand the break down in unemployment numbers anyway.
^ This as well as desperate people just accepting any job.
I know a computer programmer who was laid off and now works 20 hours a week at Home Depot... he's no longer "unemployed". He went from making 75k a year to $11 an hour.
On another topic I kind of feel like it wouldn't be so bad for the US to divert from being entirely a service economy. Don't services amount to ~90% of GDP?
There's also a huge pool of under-employed individuals (ppl taking lower paid jobs, freelancing, multiple part time jobs, etc.). Things don't seem to be improving in real life despite what the numbers say.
Totally agree
This gave me a boner
Days of low unemployment are over with. Does anyone truly believe that with current economic conditions around the world(not just US) and where we are heading as a country, we will manage to cater jobs to all the characters in our population? It simply does not make sense, and it seems like we refuse to admit to it. We raised a generation of lazy, immediate pleasure seeking, self entitled morons with false sense of security because we are american! And this will be the future of us at best, 1/4 of us will be educated and resourceful enough to support our-self's by any possible mean, but the rest will enjoy self pity and government handouts. Get real, 9% of our country is not worthy of a job and is fully excepting of that...they just someone to take care of them...see OCCUPY MOVEMENT!
This has a couple implications. It seems like great news at first, but a good chunk of these jobs are seasonal- will they disappear (causing an adverse market reaction) after the holidays?
Also, these are not exactly high-quality jobs. I don't look down on retail, but the jobs don't pay well and don't improve the long term prospects of the USA.
Finally, what do you all think this means for Obama's re-election campaign? I am just waiting for a whitehouse press release discussing how the President has brought down unemployment.
jump to 0:20
I hope the trend continues. However, I agree with all of you guys. I believe the composition of the statistic needs to be examined. Remember when the number plummeted a few months ago? It was mostly due to striking Verizon workers returning. Most of this number is likely seasonal/holiday employment. Doesn't UPS alone hire a ridiculous amount of Package Handlers or whatever.
lol "Package Handlers" :-D
but yes, i agree. seasonality and other factors makes this statistic less appealing upon further examination.
The case for a mandatory draft with zero deferments may make a good post.
Once Christmas is over and the dust settles in Europe we'll see where the rate is at. The U6 rate is still 15.6%
7% of people that had lost their jobs before/at the beginning of the financial crisis have regained or surpassed their financial standing/prosperity that they had at their pre-crisis job. There's no question that there's a vast amount of underemployment in this nation.
i prefer U6
I prefer reality.
Double 8.6. That is the real unemployment number.
8.6% mainly came from upward revision of added jobs from Sept and Oct. Nov Street expectation was 150k. It came in around 120k, which is a miss. Labor force declined by 350k ish jobs, which help arrive at the misleading figure. All in all, other than solid retail, things are not looking "8.6%" at all.
Labor force participation dropped from 64.2% to 64%...that helps too.
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