More economic recovery:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12648347

 

The US unemployment rate fell slightly to 8.9% in February, down from 9% the month before.

It is the third month in a row that the jobless rate has fallen, with February's figure marking a near two-year low.

Employers added 192,000 jobs last month, the US Labor Department said, above market expectations.

Paul O'Neill, former US Treasury Secretary, described the data as "very positive".

A Labor Department statement said that most job gains were in manufacturing, construction, business services and transport.

State and local government slashed 30,000 jobs, the most since November as budget cuts continue to bite.

The data showed that the jobless rate for adult men was 8.7%, for adult women 8%, and for teenagers 23.9%.

The unemployment rate has come down from 9.8% in November.

____________________

I'll be the first to admit that this is not what the Obama Administration predicted or really wanted when they wanted unemployment to stay where it was when they were inaugurated. However looking at this, the unemployment figures appear to be showing more, and more effective, growth since the Administration's stimulus package has gone into effect. It makes me curious in fact whether or not a larger stimulus package would have had more effect. What do you guys think?

Comments

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

Do these numbers take into account those who have removed themselves from actively seeking employment?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I do not know the answer to that question, as these kind of articles in my experience do not go into the methodology of how these numbers are arrived at.

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

The numbers in the snippet lankers pasted do not but in another part of the article there is the following...


"The Labor Department estimated that, when factoring in the number of part-time workers who would rather be working full time and those who have given up looking for work, the percentage of "underemployed" Americans dropped to 15.9% in February."

Now of course there are other estimates of underemployment that produce higher numbers (I've heard as high as 22% reported in the last month) using different methodologies but that is probably a good starting point for the issue.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

So what would the full count be if we blended unemployed numbers with underemployed?

[rasilio.livejournal.com]

The under-employed includes unemployed within them as a subset I believe, so it would be 8.9% unemployed with another ~6% - 15% "under-employed" depending on the methodology used to count them.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Ah. I see. Thank you.

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

This recessin and recovery haven't been typical. Two good statistics to see if we really have been creating jobs are the participation rate and the number of people employed.

http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cpsatab1.htm

The unemployment rate is pretty much those who are participating in the labor market who don't have a job. The participation rate has declined (people taking an earlier retirement than planned, staying in school longer, and dropping out) this seems to be what is really driving the lower unemployment rate. The number of people who are employed is rising, but not by enought to bring down the unemployment rate.

The good economic news is that those who do have jobs are spending more, not that people are finding jobs.

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

I apologize for my failure to spell-check while drinking.

[surferelf.livejournal.com]

They do not. It's awfully hard to count them, so most don't bother.