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U.S. Adds 146,000 Jobs; Jobless Rate Falls to 7.7%

Rapunzel52 said:
OK...so we've gone nowhere, which is not growth. What happened to those people who left the roles In November that upped the rate a month ago??? Still doesn't change the fact that 350,000 left the work force in one months time.
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That's not what it means. It just means that the participation rate didn't move, which is not the same thing as the unemployment rate. The participation rate has been falling for a decade or more and will continue to fall as more baby boomers hit retirement age.
 
AdamT said:
That's not what it means. It just means that the participation rate didn't move, which is not the same thing as the unemployment rate. The participation rate has been falling for a decade or more and will continue to fall as more baby boomers hit retirement age.
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That was one of the points I tried to address before. It is the young that appear to be dropping out and the older Americans are coming back into the work force.
 
Helix said:
it's slowly crawling back. let's hope that the both sides don't screw it up by letting us go over the cliff, or by enacting the changes too quickly.
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Oh BS.....they didnt even adjust for seasonal employment and how many dropped out of the labor force ?

If it wasn't for stupid people you guys would have no base because xou would have to be pretty thick to think that report is indicative of anything good.
 
I had heard the expectation was low due to Super Storm Sandy. It seems things are improving much better than expected. I think the next jobs numbers will be even better because of the seasonal work and jobs created from cleaning up and rebuilding with the storm damage.
 
Boo Radley said:
What I just heard on the radio was that it was larger than what they expected even with seasonal jobs. They also say all the unemployment numbers we've had recently reflect a sizable number no longer looking for work. So, while the unemployment rate is encouraging, we do have a large number no longer counted.
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Why would they look for work when they can live so comfortably on welfare? They dont even have to pretend to be looking for a job anymore!
 
Rapunzel52 said:
It appears to have increased.
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Yes, from 88,341 in Oct to 88,883 in Dec. Adam's point was:

AdamT said:
Participation rate was down slightly last month and up slightly the previous month. No change, net, over the last two months.
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Which considering Sept at 88,710 is false by 173k...if splittin' hairs...but when considering the previous year 86,503 the reduction is much greater...almost two and a half million...:shock:
 
Blue_State said:
I will throw this out there. What would be an ideal participation rate for 2013?
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Somewhat short of ideal, but puts things in persepective:
In the 25 years leading up to the recession, we had an average level of around 62.6% employment - to get back to "average" from where we are now - in one year - would require an average of almost 850,000 jobs created each month.
 
Taylor said:
Somewhat short of ideal, but puts things in persepective:
In the 25 years leading up to the recession, we had an average level of around 62.6% employment - to get back to "average" from where we are now - in one year - would require an average of almost 850,000 jobs created each month.
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Again, we are in the midst of a long-term demographic change as the baby boom generation hits retirement. Average in the 25 years previous is not going to match up with current and future averages even if we had full employment.
 
AdamT said:
That's not what it means. It just means that the participation rate didn't move, which is not the same thing as the unemployment rate. The participation rate has been falling for a decade or more and will continue to fall as more baby boomers hit retirement age.
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The proportion of retirees has increased at a much more rapid rate throughout most of the past century (up until about 1990), than it's doing now with the baby boomers.
 
Dickieboy said:
Not per the Labor Secretary:



OPA News Release: Statement of Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis on November employment numbers [12/07/2012]
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The full quote shows that Sandy caused a disruption in employment and businesses where lost.
"While Hurricane Sandy did not affect the unemployment rate, it did result in 1.5 million Americans experiencing some sort of disruption in employment. Families have lost their homes and possessions, and communities have lost businesses and public infrastructure. It's more critical than ever for America to rebuild. Hurricane Sandy underscores the need to repair our crumbling infrastructure and why it's so important for Congress to act on President Obama's plan to create a national infrastructure bank and put our construction workers back on the job.
 
Fenton said:
Oh BS.....they didnt even adjust for seasonal employment and how many dropped out of the labor force ?

If it wasn't for stupid people you guys would have no base because xou would have to be pretty thick to think that report is indicative of anything good.
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"you guys?"

I'm an American, and I'm just glad that the report wasn't worse. I'm also concerned that hyperpartisans on both sides are going to really mess things up with their game of chicken. save your venom for the hacks; I'm not interested.
 
Hairytic said:
The full quote shows that Sandy caused a disruption in employment and businesses where lost.
"While Hurricane Sandy did not affect the unemployment rate, it did result in 1.5 million Americans experiencing some sort of disruption in employment. Families have lost their homes and possessions, and communities have lost businesses and public infrastructure. It's more critical than ever for America to rebuild. Hurricane Sandy underscores the need to repair our crumbling infrastructure and why it's so important for Congress to act on President Obama's plan to create a national infrastructure bank and put our construction workers back on the job.
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Er..uh, yeah, but didn't 'affect the unemployment rate' as you originally asserted...HELLO...:doh
 
Hundreds of thousands dropped out of Labor Force

70% of all the new "jobs"" created in the last 5 months are Government Jobs. They require privately created wealth to exist, ie opportunity costs/negative externalities that affect real economic growth

The Goebbels Propaganda Machine in WA continues to spin as Bernanke continues to pump away

Fed Exit Plan May Be Redrawn as Assets Near $3 Trillion - Bloomberg
 
Dpetty said:
Why would they look for work when they can live so comfortably on welfare? They dont even have to pretend to be looking for a job anymore!
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Your perception of the social safety net is off.
 
Bronson said:
Hundreds of thousands dropped out of Labor Force

70% of all the new "jobs"" created in the last 5 months are Government Jobs. They require privately created wealth to exist, ie opportunity costs/negative externalities that affect real economic growth

The Goebbels Propaganda Machine in WA continues to spin as Bernanke continues to pump away

Fed Exit Plan May Be Redrawn as Assets Near $3 Trillion - Bloomberg
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Oh hey Godwin made it into the thread already!
 
AdamT said:
Again, we are in the midst of a long-term demographic change as the baby boom generation hits retirement. Average in the 25 years previous is not going to match up with current and future averages even if we had full employment.
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Oh, please.

Currently, about 36.4% of the civilian noninstitutional population (i.e. people able to work) have chosen not to be in the labor force. 36.5% of those who chose not to be in the labor force are age 65 or older. That's the lowest proportion in almost 25 years. That is, we have a higher proportion of younger people (16-64) who have chosen not to work than we've had since 1988.

Baby boomers my ass.
 
Helix said:
it's slowly crawling back. let's hope that the both sides don't screw it up by letting us go over the cliff, or by enacting the changes too quickly.
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Much of the reason for the unemployment rate dropping as it did is due to people exhausting their unemployment benefits. Also, while the number listed is a start, it is still mediocre. Still, better than nothing, and I want to stress that it is not because of Obama that we are getting positive numbers. It is the market, and nothing else. That is why Romney didn't lie when he said that 12 million jobs would be created under a Romney administration. Of course he didn't lie. He just misrepresented himself, same as Obama is doing here. Lots of jobs are going to eventually be created, but it will be the market place that creates them. Not Obama, not Romney, and not the man in the moon.
 
Deuce said:
Your perception of the social safety net is off.
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Prove it. We have record unemployment, and still manage to have near record employment... That only makes sense in bizaro world.
 
Taylor said:
The proportion of retirees has increased at a much more rapid rate throughout most of the past century (up until about 1990), than it's doing now with the baby boomers.
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Link?
 
Taylor said:
Should be "U.S. Adds 146,000 Jobs - 122,000 fewer than the required 268,000 to break even"
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No it should read

U.S. Adds 146,000 Jobs - 122,000 fewer than the required 268,000 to break even according right wing think tanks living in the 20th century and thinking the world is flat and run by Reagan.
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Dpetty said:
Why would they look for work when they can live so comfortably on welfare? They dont even have to pretend to be looking for a job anymore!
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Welare isn't a comfortable way of life. It's a hard struggle and most of the people unemployed would rather be working and improving their lives.
 
danarhea said:
Much of the reason for the unemployment rate dropping as it did is due to people exhausting their unemployment benefits. Also, while the number listed is a start, it is still mediocre. Still, better than nothing, and I want to stress that it is not because of Obama that we are getting positive numbers. It is the market, and nothing else. That is why Romney didn't lie when he said that 12 million jobs would be created under a Romney administration. Of course he didn't lie. He just misrepresented himself, same as Obama is doing here. Lots of jobs are going to eventually be created, but it will be the market place that creates them. Not Obama, not Romney, and not the man in the moon.
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i agree with some of this, with the caveat that government policy does have an impact, and not just in the "get out of the way" sense. i think we could be in a lot worse shape than we are now if hadn't addressed the crisis as promptly as we did in 2008, and some of the decisions made in the past four years also helped. letting all of those companies fail at once in an unstructured way would have been catastrophic, and cutting spending right in the middle of the crisis would have also had a serious impact.

on the downside, we're still not anywhere close to out of the woods, and now we have to raise taxes and cut spending. our most modest of recoveries is at real risk, and there's no way to avoid paying the bills now. to say that i'm concerned would be an understatement.
 
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