EasyEd
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
Posts: 7,272
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Post by EasyEd on Aug 7, 2009 14:21:38 GMT -5
Unemployment is down but we still lost 247,000 jobs in July. These figures may indicate we are near bottoming out but I'm always careful since the government often adjusts the preliminary numbers up or down later on. At any rate it appears we're starting to see a glimmer of hope for the economy. Hope so for those out of work.
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GIGAFAN99
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 4,487
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Post by GIGAFAN99 on Aug 7, 2009 17:58:17 GMT -5
Jersey's right; he's not much of an economist.
The report today was, well, nothing. Had you asked for projections three months ago, you would have gotten likely between 950,000 and 1,050,000 over three months. But of course because the pattern was irregular, we got 303,000 in May (Recession over!!!!!!!) then 443,000 in June (Oh no it's worse than we thought!!!!!!) then 247,000 in July (Recession over again!!!!!!). Add 'em up, 993K: about dead on. So the only thing that happened today was a market boost and some neutral news posing as good news for everyone to run with.
As for the "drop" in unemployment; that's a joke. The unemployment rate fell because people left the workforce (as in gave up looking for a job), which is not good. If everyone who was unemployed picked up a cyanide pill instead of a resume, unemployment would fall as well but that's not a positive outcome. It's not that uncommon in deep recessions though, so it's not too alarming. It's just not any sign of a faster recovery.
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Post by jerseyhoya34 on Aug 7, 2009 18:29:46 GMT -5
Superfluous attacks aside, as a matter of atmospherics, the WSJ calls the jobs report "undeniably good news" as opposed to "nothing" or "neutral." (Source: tinyurl.com/lylqea). I'm inclined to think that the truth can be found somewhere in between. The issue of people leaving the labor force has been there for the past few months, if not longer. It has put pressure on the unemployment numbers to be sure, yet the unemployment rate was slowly creeping toward 10%. These reports of a drop, even factoring in the issue of people leaving the labor force, suggests that the pace of layoffs/firings and the like has slowed and has been slowing. That appears to be positive rather than negative or neutral. Other important considerations - 1. Wages/earnings went up. 2. The average work week was longer. 3. Job losses were not as bad as initially reported for May and June. 4. In January, average job loss numbers were around 700K/month.
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GIGAFAN99
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 4,487
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Post by GIGAFAN99 on Aug 7, 2009 19:40:25 GMT -5
Superfluous attacks aside, as a matter of atmospherics, the WSJ calls the jobs report "undeniably good news" as opposed to "nothing" or "neutral." (Source: tinyurl.com/lylqea). I'm inclined to think that the truth can be found somewhere in between. The issue of people leaving the labor force has been there for the past few months, if not longer. It has put pressure on the unemployment numbers to be sure, yet the unemployment rate was slowly creeping toward 10%. These reports of a drop, even factoring in the issue of people leaving the labor force, suggests that the pace of layoffs/firings and the like has slowed and has been slowing. That appears to be positive rather than negative or neutral. Other important considerations - 1. Wages/earnings went up. 2. The average work week was longer. 3. Job losses were not as bad as initially reported for May and June. 4. In January, average job loss numbers were around 700K/month. A fan of the WSJ are you? Of course everyone will tout good news. You AND ed agree that everyone wants good news so of course everyone will push good news. Main Street, Wall Steet, 1600 Pennsylvania...everyone wants to think we're doing great. May's "shock" was undeniably good too. March was the "bottom." Hell Obama had us bottoming out at 8.1% for the year as I said. People love to call this thing over. There are some good peripheral numbers. It looks like some part-timers are becoming full-time so that's good. But most of your other points really provide little new information. January was the peak for monthly losses and we've been on the back end of that peak since. Losses will continue to shrink for a couple of months. The question is the tail. Will we kick around small job losses for months on end, see minimal gains, or actually ramp back up? Too soon to tell.
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