[Daniel_Plainview]

California job losses grow

By George Avalos
Contra Costa Times
Posted: 03/01/2010 04:30:00 PM PST
Updated: 03/01/2010 08:40:09 PM PST
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')California lost far more jobs last year than the state initially reported, according to a new report that provides an early glimpse into statewide employment trends. "The economy was a lot worse than everybody thought," said Howard Roth, chief economist with the state's Department of Finance. "The job market is weaker than we figured."

According to an estimate from the state Employment Development Department, California employers shed 871,000 jobs in 2009. If that estimate holds up when final revisions are released this month, California's job losses would be far more grim than first believed. The agency reported as recently as Jan. 22 that California employers chopped 579,000 jobs from payrolls in 2009. That would translate into 292,000 more lost jobs. "If it comes to that number, it would be one of the biggest revisions ever," said Paul Wessen, an economist with the state EDD. "I can't remember a revision this big since the early 1990s, when we lost a lot of aerospace jobs."

"This is the worst recession for California since the Great Depression," said Brad Kemp, director of regional research with Beacon Economics. Bleak economic conditions come as no surprise for Bay Area job seekers. "The job market is pretty tough," said Nyla Burt-Heeder, a Martinez resident who is seeking work as an administrative assistant in the medical industry. "It's fairly difficult to get the type of income that you want." ... "When you have a recession this severe, you can have a variation like this," added Wessen,

continued

[Daniel_Plainview]

30 Million Americans Seek Work

Gallup Poll shows gov’t hides real figures

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')y Fred Goldstein
Published Mar 3, 2010 9:29 PM
A Gallup Poll released on Feb. 23 revealed that in January 30 million workers in the U.S. were either on forced part-time or out of work altogether. This number, based on a poll of over 20,000 adults over the age of 18 and conducted from Jan. 2 to Jan. 31, amounts to 20 percent of the workforce.

[Daniel_Plainview]

Wash. Post -- Are unemployment benefits no longer temporary?

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '.').. About 11.4 million out-of-work people now collect unemployment compensation, at a cost of $10 billion a month. Half of them have been receiving payments for more than six months, the usual insurance limit. But under multiple extensions enacted by the federal government in response to the downturn, workers can collect the payments for as long as 99 weeks in states with the highest unemployment rates -- the longest period since the program's inception.

The unemployed say extensions help to tide them over in unusually difficult times when jobs are hard to come by. Although unemployment held steady at 9.7 percent in February, millions of jobs have been lost in the downturn, particularly in the hardest-hit sectors including real estate, construction, manufacturing and financial services. Those jobs are unlikely to return even when the economy recovers, many experts say.

But complaints that extending unemployment payments discourages job-seeking have begun to bubble into the political debate. Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) recently single-handedly held up the latest extension, a bill to keep unemployment benefits in place for 30 more days, saying Congress should find other cuts to cover its $10 billion price tag.

...The 14.9 million jobless Americans have been out of work an average of 29.7 weeks, just below January's 30.2-week average. Those levels are the highest since the government began keeping those records in the 1950s, according to Stettner....

continued

[Daniel_Plainview]

Jobless Rate Rose in 30 States In January, Five Hit Records
By: Joseph Pisani CNBC News Associate
Published: Wednesday, 10 Mar 2010 | 11:22 AM ET

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'U')nemployment rose in most states in January—even breaking records in several states, according to government data released Wednesday.

Joblessness in five states—California (12.5 percent), South Carolina (12.6 percent) , Florida (11.9 percent), Georgia (10.4 percent) and North Carolina (11.1 percent). The District of Columbia also reached a record high at 12.0 percent.

In all, 30 states and the District of Columbia saw their rates increase in January over the previous month. Nine states reported a decrease and 11 states had no change in their unemployment, according to the Labor Department.

... "It shows that the labor market is virtually frozen," said Nick Colas, chief market strategist at the ConvergEx Group. Although the data is from January, he said that "there has not been any dramatic change in these past six weeks." ...

continued

[Daniel_Plainview]

CNBC -- States, Cities Likely to Slash Jobs As Stimulus Dwindles
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'P')ublished: Tuesday, 9 Mar 2010 | 1:58 PM ET
By: Albert Bozzo
Senior Features Editor

The worst looks to be over for private-sector unemployment, but it may be just beginning for state and local government workers.

State and local government payrolls typically don’t decline much until a year after the beginning of a recession because budgets are already in place and fairly inflexible.

As a result, payrolls were stable in 2008 and a good part of 2009. But not anymore. Revenue-starved states are taking more drastic steps to balance budgets.

"This is a completely unprecedented crisis," says Ethan Pollack of the Economic Policy Institute. "The budget cuts are going to get more and more severe."

The main trigger will be the winding down of the massive America Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better know as the federal stimulus plan. Tepid to modest economic growth will also hurt.

"A lot of states didn’t go through with the layoffs that were expected because of the stimulus," says Christian Weller, who specializes in economics and public policy for the University of Massachusetts and the Center for American Progress.

[Daniel_Plainview]

Weekly Initial Unemployment Claims: Still Suggesting Job Losses Despite Massive Federal Intervention

by CalculatedRisk on 3/11/2010 08:30:00 AM

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he DOL reports on weekly unemployment insurance claims:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ') In the week ending March 6, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 462,000, a decrease of 6,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 468,000. The 4-week moving average was 475,500, an increase of 5,000 from the previous week's revised average of 470,500.
...
The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending Feb. 27 was 4,558,000, an increase of 37,000 from the preceding week's revised level of 4,521,000.

[MonteQuest]

After the 1983 recession, the economy grew by nearly 8%, yet it only lowered the jobless rate by 2.5 percentage points that year. The most optimistic projections today are for a GDP growth of 3% this year. This speaks volumes about how long it will take to lower the 9.9% (U3) unemployment we have now. U6 is at 17.1%, which includes those who have given up looking for work and those who are underemployed.

To show why this 17.1% number is more realistic, consider for a moment that, had the labor force not decreased by 661,000 in December 2009, the jobless rate would have been 10.4 percent, instead of 10%. How did the labor force decrease by this huge number you ask? Because those 661,000 people became discouraged, and just flat gave up looking for work. When that happens, they are no longer counted as part of the labor force, and consequently, not part of those considered unemployed. This gives us the “official” number the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) calls U3. When these “discouraged” workers start to once again look for work, if and when the economy starts to really improve, you could well see unemployment soar past 11 or 12 % in 2010. The unemployment statistics (U3) number has gone down, but it is nothing but a “smoke and mirrors” spin on the real unemployment crisis masquerading as a stimulus-driven improvement.

For example: The most recent Consumer Price Index for inflation was officially 2.3%; but if you compute inflation the way BLS did it in 1980, the inflation rate would be 9.5%. Unemployment officially stands at 9.9%; but if computed the way BLS did it prior to 1994, it would come out to 22.1%. They massage the way they calculate every single number or statistic they release, to make things look better than they are.

Also, every month, BLS uses what is known as a birth-death adjustment to estimate the number of jobs created or lost from employers who start a business during the course of the year, as well as those who have gone out of business. During the April 2008-March 2009 period, that adjustment added 717,000 jobs. However, the annual revision of U.S. payrolls recently released shows that 824,000 jobs were actually lost, instead. In other words, over 1.8 million jobs were lost over the last 23 months, beyond those included in the official reports.

To get back to a 5% unemployment rate, in say, five years, we would have to create 15 million jobs. Therefore, we would we need to create 250,000 jobs per month. The Obama administration predicts that job gains will only average 95,000 a month for 2010. 13 years at that rate.

Can we create 250,000 new jobs per month, on average, over the next five years? If you take the best year in the last ten (2006), you get an average monthly growth of 232,000. Only someone vastly removed from reality would posit that the US could, or will, return to an economy based on the fraudulent securitization of reckless debt, which gave rise to that level of job creation.

In 1929, the U.S. unemployment rate averaged 3%. In 1933, in the depths of the Great Depression, 25% of all American workers were unemployed. Will it get that bad? Follow this link for a vivid view of just how fast we are headed toward those same numbers: http://www.latoyaegwuekwe.com/geography ... ssion.html

People need to come to terms with the fact that this is not your typical cyclical downturn where hiring is just postponed until business improves. A lot of jobs and vocational niches are going to vanish―forever…most notably, in construction and the auto industry. In December 2007, there were 1.8 unemployed workers per job opening; now, the ratio is 5.6, a jump of nearly 220%.

We are bucking several major headwinds: The refi-ATM is gone (pulling illusionary equity from your home); 32.4% of recent home sales were less than the seller originally paid; 24% of mortgages are under water; the banking system is reluctant to lend; consumers are hunkered down, creating the Paradox of Thrift, as an increase in savings reduces the consumption of goods and services (GDP), and rising energy costs, particularly, oil, that has been instrumental in the cause of most of our recent recessions, including this one.

But the biggest obstacle we face is that our debt is just too great for our level of wealth and income. The ratio of debt to GDP just passed the toxic 90% trigger point at 92%. The unfunded liabilities from Medicare and Social Security come to $99.2 trillion. 92% of the pension plans of companies are now underfunded. Defaults are guaranteed by taxpayers. No amount of economic growth can ever repay the money we owe. Politicians and the media are calling this a “financial crisis”, when, in actuality, it is a debt crisis borne of years of deficit spending and the housing & tech stock bubbles which created illusionary wealth. That wealth is now gone, but the debt remains.

So, prepare for austerity or money printing…or both.

[MonteQuest]

Note: Discrepancy in the jobs numbers.While 411,000 were hired for the Census, 21,000 govt workers were laid off. 390,000 + 41,000 = 431,000 new jobs.

So, how did we do in May?

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')otal nonfarm payroll employment grew by 431,000 in May, reflecting the hiring of 411,000 temporary employees to work on Census 2010. Private-sector employment changed little (+41,000). The unemployment rate edged down to 9.7 percent.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'R')aghavan Mayur, president at TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence, follows unemployment data closely. So, when his survey for May revealed that 28% of the 1,000-odd households surveyed reported that at least one member was looking for a full-time job, he was flummoxed.

"Our numbers are always very accurate, so I was surprised at the discrepancy with the government's numbers," says Mayur, whose firm owns the TIPP polling unit, a polling partner for Investors' Business Daily and Christian Science Monitor. After all, the headline number shows the U.S. unemployment rate today is 9.5%, with a total of 14.6 million jobless people.

However, Mayur's polls continued to find much worse figures. The June poll turned up 27.8% of households with at least one member who's unemployed and looking for a job, while the latest poll conducted in the second week of July showed 28.6% in that situation. That translates to an unemployment rate of over 22%, says Mayur, who has started questioning the accuracy of the Labor Department's jobless numbers.
http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/careers/what-is-the-real-unemployment-rate/19556146/

[ian807]

The government publishes U3 numbers that don't count many classes of unemployed (e.g. those who have stopped looking for work or those that don't report themselves as unemployed). The U6 numbers are somewhat more accurate, but still don't count everybody who's looking for work and can't find it.

Granted, the definition of "unemployed" is questionable. Is a millionaire unemployed if he doesn't work? How about a retiree? And that's not all (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment).

I don't think there's any question, however, that the 9 and 10 percent rates published by the government are mere propaganda, designed to "create confidence" in the economy (Economic problems are all about "confidence" if you work for the government). Governments always think that lying helps and that people don't know that the government is lying. How they can still think this in an internet era is um, interesting, but clearly they do.

Government. It doesn't attract the brightest sorts. Too bad they're unaware of just how "not bright" they are.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '
')
http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts

And so it's like Twilight Zone.. as more and more Americans fall into an uncounted category, the government gets to say "hey things are getting better."

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ian807', 'G')overnment. It doesn't attract the brightest sorts. Too bad they're unaware of just how "not bright" they are.

[MarkJ]

At just over 6 percent Saratoga County has about the lowest unemployment in New York.

However, in many surrounding regions there are many job seekers not seriously looking for work, plus many job seekers that can't find work since they don't have the necessary high school education, college education, technical education, certifications, experience, skills, knowledge etc.

Many job seekers also can't pass background checks, credit checks, drug testing, aptitude tests, probationary periods, engineered labor standards, safety standards, or they lack reliable transportation, clean driving records etc.

Due to zero tolerance pre-employment, training and post-employment standards, many people that were employable several years ago, are currently unemployable.

We have customers in poor urban areas of Fulton county where it's common to see entire households and substantial portions of neighborhoods that are unemployed.

Many of these people work for cash or barter in the underground economy, while collecting unemployment and public assistance benefits.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '[')b]Plantagenet wrote:
Yup. And economic stats seems to be getting even more detached from reality as we approach the 2010 elections. Must be all those "green shoots".

[ian807]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '
')If you can't see how things could get better then the 9.5-9.9% official unemployment (22% ACTUAL unemployment rate) and 1.5 TRILLION dollar deficits we've gotten from the policies of the Obama administration, then I won't disabuse you of your panglossian view of the world.

[Oakley]

Here is an interesting take on how bad the current economic contraction really is:

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/arc ... yet/60086/

[Cloud9]

I was in Dublin last week. While the boss lady was picking out linins and crystal, I busied my self talking to sales clerks, cab drivers and people on the street about the state of affairs. Turns out many of the young people have fled Ireland looking for work. Many have gone to Australia and New Zealand. The Dublin sky line is dotted with a baker’s dozen of super cranes sitting atop unfinished skyscrapers. The building projects have gone bust and nobody has the money to take down the cranes. The zeitgeist of the public was generally one of concern over a long road of dark days ahead.

It felt there pretty much like it feels here. The guy who is laying my tile in my remodeling project had not worked in over a year. He has no other job when this one is done. A lot of people in the construction business were self employed. Unless I am missing something, they are not even included in the unemployment figures.

[andrew39]

It's bad enough that the nation's jobless rate is 9.7%. But the real national employment rate is even higher than the U.S. Department of Labor's May figure shows.
The official unemployment index, based on a monthly survey of sample households, counts only people who reported looking for work in the past four weeks. It doesn't account for part-time workers who want to work more hours but can't, given the tight job market. And it doesn't include those who have given up trying to find work.

[AgentR]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ian807', 'N')o stimulus? Let everything fail as the Austrian school of economists recommends (My personal favorite)?