103K jobs added, October and November numbers revised up. Unemployment down to 9.4%. Starting to look at bit like the “R” word.
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by $8 blue check mistermix| 53 Comments
This post is in: Domestic Politics
103K jobs added, October and November numbers revised up. Unemployment down to 9.4%. Starting to look at bit like the “R” word.
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cathyx
Aren’t jobs typically added during October and November for the holidays? And then aren’t they typically gone after the holidays are over?
Buck
And who will take credit for this?
Punchy
Yea! Now only 1 in every 10.6 people I see is unemployed, down significantly from the 1 in 10 of a few months ago. Success!
Cat Lady
@Buck:
Republicans, for taking back the country.
You’re welcome.
General Stuck
I hope you meant the R word in recovery, rather than the recession R. But I know you did. From watching polls on all sorts of parameters the past month or so, I’ve been getting a vague impression that the country’s mood is improving over all. I know folks attach obvious and immediate factors to what a president does, or doesn’t do, and those actions as the cause, like the tax cut deal, or other legislative successes that occurred at the end of the lame duck.
But Obama’s rise in polling doesn’t fit the model after losing a mid term, when there is usually a dip, especially after losing so many seats. Same with some other poll measurements. My theory is that improvements such as these is more related to vague sensory changes the public gets from ground level vibes that economic conditions are improving. Kind of like in nature, with animal behaviors attuned to slight and unnoticed by our senses changes in natural environmental conditions.
While humans are more attuned to environments that are man created, like economies and subtle changes that don’t necessarily show up in meta or macro numbers yet. That’s my theory anyways, lame as it is. And I get the impression that economic realities at the ground level for folks is seeing some “recovery”, nothing like fantastic, or boomish, but solid improvements for economic fortunes of working peeps.
Rey
Retard or we are all Reganites now.
RosiesDad
@Buck:
Any minute you’re gonna see Eric Cantor on TV claiming that this is a response to the prospect of repealing job killing Obamacare.
cleek
@Cat Lady:
they’ve already started. the line is that the election “signaled” to employers/investors that good times were coming and they changed their behavior ahead of anything actually happening because business loves the GOP.
the only sensible reply to that is: ok, if you say so!
Face
@Buck: Coincidence that the minute the Republicans take over the House, that suddenly unemployment improves? I think not.
And I bet neither does any of the network media.
Buck
@Cat Lady: & @RosiesDad:
Would anyone really be surprised?
Merkin
You’re asking the professional left to acknowledge positive news?
Go to DailyKos, they’re desperate to find the negative in this. One person even commented “Well, they’re crappy jobs anyway”
AxelFoley
I’m not an economist by any means, so I’m curious–what would be an acceptable rate for unemployment in this country?
Buck
@Face:
It’ll be interesting to see exactly who is first to make that connection. Probably some FOX morning crew…
Merkin
@Cat Lady:
This may not be wrong, but not for the reasons they’d claim.
I heard quite a few business owners say they’re not going to create jobs, though they could, until after Democrats lose Congress.
Won’t be surprise to see a hiring blitz over the next few months.
Alex S.
I think the really positive news here is the upward revision of last month’s numbers. It makes up for failing to meet expectations this month.
Maude
@General Stuck:
I heard on Bloomberg radio this a.m. that a very small company somewhere west of NJ is hiring 2 people. It is a big deal because they make stuff and they think they need the employees to fill orders.
We didn’t go down the rat hole. That is what’s important, IMHO.
It wasn’t until the autumn of 2009 that the financial sector stopped talking about 1929 and the ensuing Depression.
Productivity has started to go down a bit which means they aren’t bleeding employees as much for the same lousy pay.
The ACA will free a lot of people to start new businesses without fear of not being able to go to a doctor.
But, of course, HE’s going to gut Social Security.
Nick
@AxelFoley:
Around 5%, with few to any long-term unemployed.
schrodinger's cat
@AxelFoley: Its called the natural rate of unemployment between 4 and 5%. Don’t ask why this is so, this is the accepted floor by most economists.
AxelFoley
@Merkin:
LOL, I swear, that place has become a parody.
Buck
@Merkin:
Holding America hostage, to the benefit of one political party. Sounds about par.
ploeg
@Merkin:
Well, they are crappy jobs. It’s an employer’s job market right now. The rational answer is, “So what?”
TJ
Yeah. Except of course that the employment/population ratio was unchanged, so that drop in U3 in probably discouraged workers. And 2/3 of the inadequate jobs created were in leisure and ambulatory health care.
But other than that, party on.
AxelFoley
@Nick: @schrodinger’s cat:
Thanks, folks.
PeakVT
@cathyx: The numbers used by the media are all seasonally adjusted.
Adding 103K jobs is good news, but not good enough. The U-3 number declined mostly because the workforce declined by about 260K. The E2P ratio, which is the most stable number, increased by 0.1 (the FRED2 system should be updated in an hour or two.
General Stuck
@Maude:
There you go again, Maude, blogging perspective with nuance into dem politics and stuff. Can’t have that, now can we?. :-)
Nick
@PeakVT:
That would only account for about half the drop.
AxelFoley
@ploeg:
Beggars, chosers, yadda, yadda, yadda…
Seriously, if you’re not working, just about any job is welcome.
kd bart
Must be all those investigators Issa has hired.
cleek
@AxelFoley:
just ask Judith Miller!
Jinchi
The Boehner recover has begun.
PeakVT
@Nick: You’re right, the workforce number was responsible for about half of the change in the U-3 number.
PurpleGirl
Once you’ve dropped off the UI benefits role, you no longer count anywhere. You’re not tracked by your state agency, the Feds don’t care about you, the media leaves you behind too. Part of that drop in the UI rate is due to people dropping off the roles, They have no idea how many people that is. And that UI extension… only helps partially, it isn’t retroactive and it doesn’t help those whose states have rules restricting UI by how long they’ve been out. It didn’t change the tier system. That’s a lot of people who HAVE NO MONEY.
I wonder about those jobs that have hired people: Are they paying enough to live on, do they have benefits, do the hirees still need a second job to make ends meet? Later in that NYTimes article is said most of the jobs were in hospitality and health care which are low paying jobs.
chopper
@Rey:
6 of one, half a dozen of the other.
chopper
@Jinchi:
how that phrase made it past the spam filter i have no idea.
Bill Murray
also 103K doesn’t even make it to the standard level used for population growth of 127K jobs. Furthermore, a little over a year ago (December 2009) similar things were being said, although the job numbers were not quite as good as this year.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/10/the-jobs-deficit/
the point of Krugman’s is still more or less true — to get back to the pre-recession employment in 7 years requires about 300K per month.
Uloborus
@AxelFoley:
Normal is 4-5%. I *think* optimal is 3%. The idea is that just enough people are unemployed that they can readily get new jobs and there is freedom to move around. Employers aren’t hurting to hire, workers aren’t hurting to make a living.
slag
Yay! Just the thought of continuing to cut taxes for rich people has retroactively reaped huge benefits. Who knew?
skylerj
its pretty horrible news
20,000 jobs short of keeping up with population growth.
change
The economy is screwed.
change
This chart shows why Obama won’t be reelected:
http://cr4re.com/charts/charts.html#category=Employment&chart=PercentJobLossesDec2010.jpg
Scary, huh liberals?
Bob Loblaw
@Maude:
Wow, what an important story! This “very small company” making “stuff.” I betcha it’s some pretty cool stuff too!
The fact that your comment would be singled out for “perspective and nuance” pretty much sums this place up to a tee…
There is no big story today, no matter how much people strain for one. It wasn’t a bad jobs report, nor was it a particularly good one either. The data crunchers dramatically undercounted November in their advance survey, it happens. Holiday retail is hard to gauge sometimes.
The recovery still chugs along as best it can. It’s still the worst modern US recovery for wages and income growth, and the second-worst for jobs. And what jobs growth there is, isn’t particularly robust by industrial sector or geography. Everything is the same today as it was yesterday. There is no magic data point where everything just becomes swell, like a switch to be turned on or off. It’s going to be a very slow process still.
Kirk Spencer
Superficially, good news. Heck, under a lot of circumstances I’d say it’s another indicator we’re getting better, slowly but surely.
Nagahappen.
Consumer sentiment is down, and because it moved contrary to ISM expectations we’re going to be dealing with a surplus in inventory – often a recessionary push.
Government spending, both state and federal, are set to decline over the next months instead of pushing to accelerate the economy.
My favorite aggregate indicator, the Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI) has been declining since July, and is approaching the magic -0.7 line. That is, in the past every time the CFNAI has reached -0.7 we’ve seen the NBER later decide a recession officially begain within +/- 1 month of that point.
4Q2010 will look pretty good. 1Q2011 will be uglier. Sometime in 2Q2011, probably due to the debt ceiling shock being kicked around, we’ll see the edge of the table again.
change
@Kirk Spencer:
Yup. The economy will take a hammering the likes of which we’ve never seen.
PaulW
the economic models still point to a sluggish job recovery mostly because the housing industry is still in the dumps: construction jobs are few and far between… and the crisis with false foreclosures and other banking fraud matters may make things worse.
PaulW
@change:
You think that might be bad for Obama? Republicans can’t win with that chart in 2012 because the one thing that would REALLY boost job hirings – a FDRish New Deal jobs/public works bill – is the one thing the Republicans HATE. That and Social Security. And Health Care Reform. And Social Safety Nets. And…
I doubt we will see the Republicans offering up anything remotely like a Jobs Bill: they will most likely create a massive corporate tax cut and stick “Jobs Bill” on that, even though TAX CUTS DON’T CREATE JOBS! (INVESTMENT IN BUSINESS GROWTH DOES, ahem).
SFAW
Spawn of Satan, GET THEE BEHIND ME!!!1!
Everyone knows that tax cuts must be allowed to work their magic, because, as one expert said “Shut up! That’s why!”
Gay Veteran
no, it is not good news:
“…After improvement in the early part of 2010, the employment rate of the population (that is, the number of employed as a percentage of the non-institutional adult population) has been deteriorating once again….”
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=176723
Bill Murray
Mike Konczai at Rortybomb has a nice graphical depiction of the employment picture
https://rortybomb.wordpress.com/2011/01/07/job-reports-for-december-2010-continued-dropping-out-of-the-labor-force/
There also is a scary chart showing that since May of 09, the flow out of unemployment to not in the labor force has exceeded the flow out of unemployment to employed by 1-2% each month
General Stuck
@Bob Loblaw:
You are one smart mouth stupid fuck loblaw, completely missing the point just for a faux reason to belittle someone. Pathetic creature you are./
The reason a manufacturing story of even a small example is a relevant story and metaphoric , is because what jobs that have been produced the past two years many have been in the manufacturing sector, which is always good news. And it was the rest of Maude’s excellent comment that I meant by perspective and nuance, that it could be a lot worse, considering what and where the economy was when Obama starting.
You are almost too fucking worthless to even respond to these days. Just jump already.
Flugelhorn
@PaulW: Are you kidding me? The New Deal? Good gravy you are drinking the kool-aid. What you mean to wish for is World War II if you are trying to emulate the recovery of the late 40s and 50s.
liberal
@Flugelhorn:
Actually, FDR did pretty well until the deficit fetishists screwed the whole thing up in 1937.
ornery curmudgeon
@Flugelhorn:
Those who think World War brought an era of unprecedented era of peace, prosperity and rise of living standards are the koolaid drinkers … so, no thanks, you will have to choke on it by yourself.
Oh, and the employment numbers are well seasoned and tenderly cooked. Yeah most here know that, but we really do want to BELIEEEEVE. Surely liars have to run out of lies *sometime* amirite? Might as well be today.
sparky
reading is apparently not fundamental to posting or commenting, apparently.
from Calculated Risk
pretending something bad is something good? why, it’s almost the national pastime, apparently. it only depends which team you are on.