Economy added 290,000 jobs + 120,000 revised, unemployment jumps to 9.9%

Nice, but jump in unemployment. Both numbers are a surprise.

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/290000-jobs-created-in-april-jobless-rate-99-2010-05-07

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - The American economy added 290,000 jobs in April, which was much better than expected despite temporary hiring for the 2010 U.S. Census. Excluding Census workers, 224,000 nonfarm jobs were created, with the unemployment rate edging up to 9.9% from 9.7%, the Labor Department reported Friday. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch expected the economy to add 185,000 jobs, with the jobless rate holding steady at 9.7%. The data for February was also revised to show a 39,000 increase in nonfarm jobs, compared to an originally reported decline of 14,000. Job gains in March were also revised up to 230,000 from 162,000. Meanwhile, the average workweek in April rose 0.1 hour to 34.1 hours for all nonfarm workers. Average hourly earnings ticked up 1 cent to $22.47

Apparently 120,000 jobs were added because of revised numbers from first quarter.

Democrats need to all get on board and mention the new jobs report shows 410,000 jobs were added

The gain in jobs is great news, but more people lost their UI?

Wow- At least one in six Americans, are unemployed, underemployed, or has quit looking.

:hi:

. . . sure won't be the ones that make their tiresome "hopey changey" insults look stupid . . .

When their not looking ,after awhile, they aren't counted.

Unless you're against job growth.

I don't think anyone is saying that the high unemployment numbers are good.

Things suck for me. That's my point of reference.


Oh, Mark Zandi, who is genenerally supportive of Pres. Obama says unemployment will go back over ten percent.

unless you're finally off the unemployment line. I know...my husband just found permanent work after being laid off well over a year ago.

Yesterday when our 'real' insurance cards came in the mail it made me cry...that means more to me than even a paycheck right now.

BTW, the job gained is in Jax.

When they stop looking they aren't counted.
When they start looking they are counted.

So people trying week after week after week get "discouraged" and stop looking.
Once that happens they are classified as a "discouraged worker" and no longer considered either employed or unemployed.
They are no longer part of labor pool. This keeps unemployment rate down durring the decline. The problem is the reverse is true when things improve.

So as people hear about other people getting jobs or see more stuff in want ads they start looking again and thus are no longer "discouraged" and are now "unemployed".

There are roughly 2% of the workforce that is "discouraged" they will start looking again and be counted so it kinda will be 1 step forward 2 steps back until the job market absorbs all those people.

?

I mean it really depends which changes faster. Net jobs or discouraged workers returning. It takes roughly 150,000 net change to move U3 by 0.1%. So say next month we create 200,000 net jobs however 500,000 discouraged workers rejoin workforce. That would give us a U3 of roughly 10.1%. On the other hand say next month we create 350,00 jobs however only 100,000 discouraged workers rejoin workforce. That woudl give us a U3 number of roughly 9.8%. Still doesn't really matter month from month but long term the "discouraged" returning to workforce will act like a headwind slowing the Unemployment drop.

Lets look at it on a macro scale over say 6 months:

There are roughly 3 million workers "discouraged".
The population change also results in about 100K (to 150K) new workers per month. This is net change. 100K more people looking for a job for first time minus number of people who die/retire.

So say in next 6 months we produce 3 million net jobs. If there were no other factors the U3 would decline about 2%, 9.9% to 7.9%.
However new workers soak up about 60,000 of those jobs. Now say 1 million discouraged workers rejoin work force.

Net - Net: (3 million - 0.6 million - 1 million ) = 1.4 million jobs = roughly a 0.9% inprovement in U3 = 9.9% to 9.0.

Don't take these numbers as gospel more as an illustration on how discouraged workers prevented U3 from going to 13% on the way up however they will now slow the U3 decline for very long time.

Only time will tell.

But it's a good thing in the sense that it means that we're one step closer to getting through this mess.

"The report also showed an increase in long-term unemployed Americans. The number of people unemployed for 27 weeks or more rose as a percentage of all jobless, to a record 45.9 percent."

Unless they start creating one million jobs a month, the number of unemployed will stay high for a little while.

:hi:

I see no reason why we can't get back down to 7.5% unemployment by the end of next year.

Anyone thinking otherwise hasn't looked at how large the numbers are.

Even at a million jobs a month it would take over a year before we saw "normal" unemployment rates (around 5% to 6%).

I'm positive that we will see numbers in the 7's sometime next year. I consider that a good thing.

You guys disagree. None of know for sure.

The sheet number of unemployed people and then discouraged people (who will return to unemployed status once they start looking) means the number of NET jobs required is staggering.

Then you need to account for population grow. The working population is still growing by about 100K - 150K persons per month. So the first 100K - 150K jobs are essentially swallowed up by rising population.

The right-wing website cnnfn.com is reporting the numbers in their BREAKING NEWS banner, but makes sure to mention that 66,000 are census jobs.

I guess they don't count, since Rush and Hannity have said so.

The people who make the predictions knew that census jobs were coming in... the expected number included them.

:hi:

Which is why they are separated from the overall numbers in the explanation.

Unemployment just rose. Apparently up is the new down.

The 0.2% increase in the unemployment rate does not mean that more jobs were lost; just that those who stopped looking their job search again.

And the reason they started looking again is because of OPTIMISM.

Are you saying those temporary census jobs don't matter to those who have them? Temporary or not they still count, and it's part of the right-wing message to point out they are part of the numbers.

Instead of losing jobs the economy is gaining jobs. That's a good thing.

The bad thing is the economy still isn't creating enough jobs for everybody that wants one.

Most experts aren't expecting a return to full employment until 2015:


http://www.economist.com/node/16010303/comments

FL needs to diversify the jobs down here and move away from depending upon tourism and out-of-control construction.

BTW, the word in NE FL is that recovery (jobs, manufacturing, real estate, etc.) will be at least a decade to just get us back to where we were, and we may never fully recover to that point.