Latest job numbers worse than expected
The nation shed 85,000 jobs in December, worse than expected, according to a government report released Friday that suggests the economic recovery still is too weak to lead employers to add to their payrolls.
The unemployment rate was unchanged at 10 percent, the Labor Department said. Forecasters had expected zero net change in the number of jobs on U.S. payrolls, and some had had expected job growth to return. Those expectations were dashed by a report that — while not without bright spots — suggested that the long slog toward an improved labor market continued in December….
Results for November were revised upward from previous estimates, such that the Labor Department now says 4,000 jobs were created that month in contrast to initial estimates of a loss of 11,000 jobs. If the new number holds up through future revisions, November would be the first month of job growth since December 2007…..
One positive sign is that the number of temporary jobs rose by 47,000 jobs. Employers, it would seem, are reluctant to add permanent workers, but — faced with higher demand for their products — have little choice but to bring on temps. That could presage broader job creation in the future.
Nobody ever said this was going to be quick or easy. And it won’t be. A lot of our fellow Americans are hurting out there; a lot of pain and heartache, a lot of stress and depression.
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124 comments Add your comment
RB from Gwinnett
January 8th, 2010
1:05 pm
“Nobody ever said this was going to be quick or easy” No, but somebody did say if we listened to him and did what he said, unemployment wouldn’t go above 8%. It should be clear to all that said someone didn’t know what he was talking about and doesn’t understand the workings of our economy.
But you just keep defending him like he can do no wrong…
And blame Bush…
josef nix
January 8th, 2010
1:12 pm
“That could presage broader job creation in the future.”
It could also presage an economy predicated on a temporary work force. I don’t take a lot of solace in an economy based on so expendable a work force. Paging César Chávez.
Kamchak
January 8th, 2010
1:13 pm
And blame Bush…
That would be irrational. Bush was only eight years of the (then) 28 years of trickle-down, voo-doo economics.
Gale
January 8th, 2010
1:17 pm
I am not as concerned about the temp jobs for now. As long as those are really career jobs the companies will eventually see the need to make permanent.
Outhouse Go-Kart
January 8th, 2010
1:19 pm
UPS will be sending 1800 packing. Hope none of my brothers/sisters here at the dysFUNctional family get the ax.
josef nix
January 8th, 2010
1:26 pm
Gale–
I would agree to a certain point. But I fear that there will be far fewer career jobs and far more temporary jobs in a “leaner, meaner” economy and we will lose a generation trapped in the cycle of finding another of those temp jobs to make ends meet…
Hillbilly Deluxe
January 8th, 2010
1:27 pm
In my view, this thing is going to be with us for 4 or 5 years. I think focusing just on unemployment numbers is a mistake. How many people make less money in real dollars than they used to, or work work more hours for the same money, or have fewer or no benefits? What percentage of the work force is now composed of temps as opposed to 10 years ago, 20 years ago, or 30 years ago? How many people have been cut from full time to part time? In most cases the working man (or woman) has been treading water for years. Blue collar jobs have been bleeding from this country for 30-40 years but you didn’t hear much outcry until the white collar jobs started to be outsourced.
I think globalization has been a bad thing and as goofy as Ross Perot might have been, he was right about “the giant sucking sound”.
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm!
January 8th, 2010
1:28 pm
Get real, if Bush or any other Republican were president you libs would be sobbing and rending your clothes, 24/7.
Did you ever think that they have run out of people to lay off en masse? That only the bare essentials remain?
Nothing is getting better, no matter how much you chirp.
RB from Gwinnett
January 8th, 2010
1:28 pm
Kam, how about you explain how “trickle up” economics is going to work. I’ll bet you what happens is trickle up poverty which can be proven by looking at the history of every nation on the planet that has gone down this socialism path you appear to be so fond of.
If you think socialism and “free” healthcare are so wonderful, there are no less than 10 countries you can move to and have your wish by noon tomorrow. I’ll bet when you get there you’ll find it ain’t all that grand after all. And if you think we’ll maintain our standard of living under the same plan, you’re not thinking very clearly.
Make sure you write often…
Outhouse Go-Kart
January 8th, 2010
1:33 pm
HB…We shouldve elected Ross Perot when we had he chance.
Jenifer
January 8th, 2010
1:34 pm
Bush, the gift that keeps on giving…
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm!
January 8th, 2010
1:34 pm
Perfect time to throw a health care tax and increased state spending on top of a dying economy, almost as though the dummycrats want to finish it off.
josef nix
January 8th, 2010
1:34 pm
Hillbilly–
Got a can of worms for you…but why should they have been paying any attention when that was going on, it was just “those people,” uneducated hillbillies, rednecks, crackers, poor white trash, burger flippers, Southerners, trailer park residents, etc…well, as their good reverend in the 10 million dollar house might say, “the chickens have come home to roost.”
Jenifer
January 8th, 2010
1:35 pm
Guess we should just parrot the word NO all the time and see if that works, eh?
Kamchak
January 8th, 2010
1:36 pm
RB
Thirty years of supply-side has finally collapsed. Warehousing the wealth at the top has not worked. Trickle-down is a warm yellow stream.
Nothing Is Free
January 8th, 2010
1:36 pm
And the worst hit are monitories. Imagine that. Democrats are in complete charge and the economy is spinning in and the worst to get it is the very people that support them the most.
And according to my discussion with the host of the blog, there is no one else to blame but the democrats.
Jenifer
January 8th, 2010
1:36 pm
Anyone else remember Bush going live and telling us all to spend?
josef nix
January 8th, 2010
1:36 pm
“HB…We shouldve elected Ross Perot when we had he chance.”
If he’d've just kept his mouth shut about those space visitors crashing his daughter’s wedding…
Jenifer
January 8th, 2010
1:39 pm
Supply side econ has never worked except for the privileged and wealthy.
Nothing Is Free
January 8th, 2010
1:39 pm
Kamchak
Looks like you are in need of government assistance.
That’s why I am glad to pay taxes: to help people like you out. When there are people like you around, it’s good we have a generous government Not all of us can be successful.
Just keep that chin up. THe govment’s got your back.
Nothing Is Free
January 8th, 2010
1:40 pm
Jenifer
Come on, girl. We know that you’ve never said no in your life.
Jackie
January 8th, 2010
1:40 pm
The economic numbers of the Bush Administration are available for everyone to review. They are horrific. Yet, many want to blame President Obama for the huge economic hole we are in.
Please read for yourself to understand what President Obama faced when walking into office.
http://budget.house.gov/doc-library/fy2009/7.31.08_Bush%20economic_%20and%20fiscal_%20record.pdf
Hillbilly Deluxe
January 8th, 2010
1:42 pm
Josef @ 1:34
I see you got my point.
And you left too early last night. We determined that RW, Doggone, me (Trying to be humble here), and a couple others could well be on a genius level.
getalife
January 8th, 2010
1:43 pm
Yeah and the bankers are gambling huge again.
Lets hope it does not crash again.
stands for decibels
January 8th, 2010
1:44 pm
Perhaps one of our resident conservatives can explain just how vastly improved the US employment situation would’ve been had McCain somehow pulled off an upset win in 2008?
Nothing Is Free
January 8th, 2010
1:45 pm
Jackie
That is hysterical THat is a report written by a democratically controlled Congress about the failings of the economic policies of the president. LOL!!
i guess it was written for people who had never had a civics class.
Congress controls the economy. The reason why the economy in 2008 was in the crapper was because the democrats took over in 2007.
RB from Gwinnett
January 8th, 2010
1:46 pm
Kam, sounds like you have a healthy case of class envy to me. Perhaps instead of finding the most convenient conservative you can find to blame you should mosey on over to wal mart and buy yourself a mirror.
Not sitting here on this site all day spouting your socialist agenda might help too…
I Report (-: You Whine )-: mmm, mmmm, mmmmm!
January 8th, 2010
1:46 pm
RNC CHAIRMAN MICHAEL STEELE: “For close to a full year the American people have been forced to watch and in many cases bear the burden of our ever increasing national unemployment rate which unfortunately remained in the double digits throughout the month of December. More than 85,000 Americans lost their jobs in the month of December, meaning more than 2.8 million Americans have lost their jobs since the stimulus passed, and the national unemployment rate remains at 10 percent. The American economy is a powerful and amazingly resilient system that will always naturally return to balance because of the determination and unique ingenuity of the American worker. But President Obama’s singular focus on enacting his government-run liberal policies are single handily preventing this return. It’s time for President Obama to heed the recent words of Democrat Senator Ben Nelson and finally do what he should have been doing over the past year – put his full and undivided attention on fixing our economy.”
No Michael, obozo should resign his office effective immediately and return it to the control of adults.
I think the RNC chairman should do the same.
Nothing Is Free
January 8th, 2010
1:48 pm
stands for decibels
You really need to pick up a civics book.
The economy was doomed when it became controlled by the democrats in 2007. McCain could have saved it ONLY if Congress would have also flipped.
josef nix
January 8th, 2010
1:48 pm
Hillbilly—
I went back and looked over last p.m. Sorry I missed on that one…there were some really good comments made…
But we best be careful, the Bruin is out and hungry–see downstairs! But, seriously, the point you were making is what I was trying, somewhat ineffectively, to get across downstairs…the Democrats are the party of paternalism and, even if they don’t want to admit to the hyperbolic charge, are very much still the party of the Ole Plantation. The GOP is not in the plantation bidness–sold it the China.
Lord Help Us
January 8th, 2010
1:48 pm
Beautiful…the goob that suggests someone take a civics class thinks congress ‘controls the economy.’
Lord Help Us…
Jenifer
January 8th, 2010
1:49 pm
Gingrich: Hoekstra’s Campaign Got A ‘Boost’ From Failed Airline Bomber
republicants are so up in arms that Americans voted them out of power in the last 2 election cycles that they inexplicably embrace another terrorist attack on this country in order for them to try and regain power.
One really has to have a serious mental deficiency to agree with the republicant line of thinking.
A boost in fundraising due to a thwarted terrorist attack. Hoekstra should be disgusted with himself, but he’s not, simply because he has no morals.
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/01/07/gingrich-hoekstra-boost/
josef nix
January 8th, 2010
1:51 pm
RB
I don’t think K’chak has class envy…I sometimes think he may have class shame, but, well, he’s an Atlanta native from this part of town…
Nothing Is Free
January 8th, 2010
1:51 pm
Lord Help Us
“Thinks” the economy is controlled by Congress?
If you are allowed to vote, then we DO need the lord’s help.
Wait. Too late. We have a Congress and White House that has been populated by the votes of people who know no more about government than you.
Lord Help Us.
Nothing Is Free
January 8th, 2010
1:53 pm
Jenifer
More “Thinkprogress”. LOL!!
That’s why you are such a gift to the conservatives here.
Lord Help Us
January 8th, 2010
1:54 pm
Yo, Nuthin…show me a civics course anywhere that teaches that Congress ‘controls the economy.’
I’ll be waiting (and chuckling…)
I scoop ;~] Uleak :~o
January 8th, 2010
1:56 pm
Greenspan said that the unemployment rate will remain high well into the recovery as more and more people return to the job hunt when they get news of the job growth.
Nothing Is Free
January 8th, 2010
1:59 pm
Lord Help Us
Show you a civics course? LOL!! How about any of them?
How about you show me a math course where two and two equals four. LOL!!
But just for fun, how about this:
FAIRFAX, Va. – Warning that the nation could face devastating unemployment levels and a lengthy recession, President-elect Barack Obama yesterday pleaded with Congress to move quickly on a stimulus package of carefully chosen public works projects and tax cuts that could total $775 billion or more.
The president seems to think that the economy is controlled by congress. Why don’t you?
Hillbilly Deluxe
January 8th, 2010
2:00 pm
sfd @ 1:44
As I said several months ago, I think if McCain had been elected, things might have been a tad better or tad worse but not much real difference. That’s only my opinion though, I don’t speak for anybody else.
Josef
I don’t think either party really gives a damn about working people. They’ll both give it lip service but the only jobs they are really worried about preserving are their own. After the 2010 Census is done and it becomes reapportionment time, just sit back and watch the horse trading that gets done to insure that while a particular state may gain or lose a seat or two for a particular party, the deals will be cut to see that the incumbents get safe seats.
stands for decibels
January 8th, 2010
2:01 pm
You really need to pick up a civics book.
A Democratically controlled HoR and Senate would not have been able to override a McCain veto; they’d have to craft legislation with a reasonable chance of passage. And so again I ask; how would the employment numbers have changed if McCain had won?
Come on, guys. I keep hearing what an evil force for the destruction of the free market we’ve got in the Uppity Kenyan. Tell me how his competition would’ve improved things.
Lord Help Us
January 8th, 2010
2:03 pm
Thanks for ‘Nuthin…’
Congress, like the Fed, like the free market, like the economy of other countries, like supply/demand, etc. all AFFECT the economy…None of them ‘control the economy.’
Who needs that civics class?
Jenifer
January 8th, 2010
2:03 pm
Native-American GOP Congressman Calls Steele’s ‘Honest Injun’ Comments ‘Unacceptable’
Go at it, republicants! Tear yourselves up! Bring yourselves down even lower, if that’s possible! We’re lovin’ every minute of it!
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/01/08/cole-steele/
Jackie
January 8th, 2010
2:04 pm
@NIF
The report you cite is written for people who have a basic understanding of economic and who can make an adult decision about the problem(s).
As for the economy being controlled by the Congress, where do you obtain that nonsensical information? We do not live in a communist state.
It appears that civics classes that you attended were the ones controlled by the Repubs.
Secondly, do you believe the number of jobs lost was 7.2 million and the ACTUAL unemployment rate is more than 17%?
BO(D)
January 8th, 2010
2:06 pm
The American economy has gone through what has been called the Great Recession. But the crisis in Black communities across the U.S. constitutes an outright depression–spurring desperate conditions that have gone largely unreported because of the racist indifference of the government and mass media.
Unemployment has reached catastrophic levels in Black communities. The numbers are staggering. Official African American unemployment was 15.6 percent in November 2009, compared to an overall national rate 10 percent–and those statistics leave out workers who have been forced into part-time jobs because they couldn’t find full-time work, or who have been pushed out of the workforce altogether.
THERE HAVE been many explanations offered for the job disparities between African Americans and whites during this recession. Some focus on education and training as the main problem with the employability of African Americans. Others point to the jobs that African Americans have been concentrated in, like manufacturing–these are the sectors that have experienced the greatest job losses.
There are certainly elements of both explanations that are true. But the larger issue in the overwhelming way the recession is impacting Black America has to do with racism.
It’s amazing the lengths to which politicians, Black and white alike, will go to avoid mentioning race and racism as factors in the ever swelling number of Black employed.
For example, the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) received extensive news coverage for “confronting” President Barack Obama about Black unemployment and “prodding” him to do more about it.
But when asked at a press conference why Obama should do more for Blacks when everyone is suffering, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) defensively said, “We’re not talking about race. We’re talking about hardest hit, where their unemployment rates are the greatest…We’re talking about qualified areas of economic hardship, where 20 percent or more of the population is at or below the poverty line, and we want at least 10 percent of the resources targeted.”
In case anyone was confused, Lee’s colleague, Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.) reiterated that the CBC’s concern isn’t “based on the foundation of race,” but rather focused on the “foundation of need.”
Despite the tepid urging of the CBC, Barack Obama–who won a whopping 95 percent of the votes of African Americans in the 2008 election and benefited from an unprecedented Black turnout–persisted in ignoring the particular ways that the crisis is devastating Black communities.
While Obama has proven himself to be an expert in singling out African American men and parents in general by highlighting what he feels to be their deficiencies in child rearing, the Black president lacks the same initiative in identifying the crisis in Black unemployment.
hmmmmmmmm
Continue to vote Democrat.
Nothing Is Free
January 8th, 2010
2:06 pm
Hillbilly Deluxe
*I don’t think either party really gives a damn about working people.*
I really don’t have the time to talk about this, but I disagree. Both parties care very much about their voting base which is their power base. If a person succeeds, there is a much greater chance he will vote Republican. if a person’s life is crap, there is much greater chance they will vote democratic.
I don’t think Republicans care about individual people any more than Democrats, but Republicans need people to succeed and Democrats need people to fail. That pretty much drives both party’s policies.
N-GA
January 8th, 2010
2:06 pm
So far all the GOP (including Palin) can say about the economy is: “Cut taxes for small businesses.” So here is a brief quiz:
1. There are hundreds of thousands of restaurants. How many people will they hire if their taxes are reduced?
2. There are hundreds of thousands of medical/dental LLC’s. How many people will they hire if their taxes are reduced?
3. There are hundreds of thousands of builders, remodelers, etc. How many people will they hire if their taxes are reduced?
4. There are hundreds of thousands of CPA’s, wealth advisors, etc. How many people will they hire if their taxes are reduced.
5. ad nauseum…..
All of these are small businesses and the answer to every question is a big, fat ZERO!!!!!! They won’t hire more staff until there are more CUSTOMERS!
So all you greedy, brain-damaged GOPers who whine that the solution to this mess is to reduce taxes on small businesses can go pound sand.
nuff’ said!
Paul
January 8th, 2010
2:07 pm
getalife
[[Yeah and the bankers are gambling huge again. Lets hope it does not crash again.]]
So much for ‘we won’t let them stay too big to fail.’
More campaign talk.
getalife
January 8th, 2010
2:10 pm
Paul,
Did you hear the fans shout SEC?
Nothing Is Free
January 8th, 2010
2:11 pm
Jackie
*As for the economy being controlled by the Congress, where do you obtain that nonsensical information?*
That would be civics class. ‘Bout 7th grade.
Please point to a single law that any president has ever created.
He can veto bills, but he doesn’t have line item veto powers so it is all or nothing.
PLease tell me how Obama is responsible for the bill going through Congress on the Heath Insurance scam. He has not attended a single close door meeting. Congress is, as usual drafting the bills and laws that will effect the economy.
But just for fun, why do you think that the president controls the economy?
wyldbyllhyltnyr
January 8th, 2010
2:11 pm
I just wish that, rather than chit-chatting with Bill Clinton, Obama would put his massive ego aside and do that which is in the nation’s best interest – PICK UP THE PHONE AND ASK PRESIDENT BUSH FOR HIS HELP in turning the economy around. President Bush is a bright guy, unlike our dimwitted Obama, who turned around the economy from the ruins Clinton left and set up a framework that mitigated the bank meltdown. President Bush is a trerue statesmen who would help the suffering people even though Obama has tried to blamne everything on him and Vice President Cheney. We need someone smart, experienced, and strong to lead us, like President Bush, rather than a callow, out-of-control, ideolgue like Obama.
Palin./Liz Cheney 2012 – Urkel’s day of reckoning