Last month, we had a five-year high jobless rate. But, always trying to be the best (/sarcasm), we had to beat last month’s jobless rate, for the worst month in the last 5 years.
The American economy lost 159,000 jobs in September, the worst month of retrenchment in five years, the government reported on Friday, amplifying fears that an already painful downturn had entered a more severe stage that could persist well into next year.
And it’s going to get worse.
Employment has diminished for nine consecutive months, eliminating 760,000 jobs, according to the Labor Department’s report. And that does not count the traumatic events of recent weeks, as a string of Wall Street institutions collapsed, prompting the $700 billion emergency rescue package approved by Congress on Friday.
September job loss is twice that of August.
He pointed out that the September job loss is roughly twice the 75,000 average level seen in the first eight months of the year. The September jobs report loss, coupled with other recent economic readings and the credit crisis among the nation’s banks and Wall Street firms, all point to deeper job cuts and recession conditions at least through the spring of 2009, he said.
The unemployment rate remained at 6.1%, the same level as August and in line with economists’ forecast.
Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast the loss of 105,000 jobs in the month. It was the largest monthly job loss total since March 2003, when payrolls were down 212,000, and the second-largest decline since the months that followed the Sept. 11 terrorist attack in late 2001.
People that work an hourly job, lost even more.
In another sign of weakness, the average hourly work week slipped by 0.1 hour to 33.6 hours. And a modest 3-cent gain in the average hourly salary, combined with the shorter week, means that the average weekly paycheck fell by 81 cents to $610.51. Both the work week and hourly wage gains were weaker than forecasts.
So, instead of helping the people that actually need the help, Congress, with the urging of Bush and Paulson, coupled by the vise-grip of Wall Street, did the worst thing ever, and bailed-out the wrong side of the equation.
More and more people are either under-employed or not employed at all, the worst it’s been in 14 years.
The under-employment rate, which counts those without jobs who have become discouraged and stopped looking for work, as well as part-time workers who want full-time jobs, rose to 11% from 10.7%, the highest rate since April 1994, according to the Labor Department’s monthly jobs report.
The report also breaks down the specific number of people working part-time jobs because they couldn’t find full-time work or their hours had been cut back due to slack conditions, which jumped by 337,000 people to 6.1 million. That’s the first time there have been more than 6 million part-time workers wanting full-time jobs since 1993.
That reading is up more than a third from a year ago, the biggest 12-month jump since the period right after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Other than that short 2001 spike in the reading, there hasn’t been a jump like this since the deep recession of 1982.
It would seem to me that making significant changes to this “trend” is something the next president will have to devote some serious time and energy to correct. This should be addressed seriously, in the upcoming debate. The American people deserve a clear answer on how this recession will be turned around.
If this president doesn’t get impeached, the impeachment process must be dead. I really can’t imagine anyone doing much worse.
Karlo, I think the impeachment process is dead and buried. Unless Bush gets a blowjob in the oval office, it won’t be revived.