Misleading employment statistics?

I just saw a statistic on CNN this morning that stated small businesses with less than 50 employees laid off a total of 68,000 people in November. I thought they said the total unemployment number for November was 11,000? How many TOTAL people were laid off in November? Did it only jump by 11,000 from the previous month. There were still what.......? Over a 100,000 laid off for the month? I'm confused.

Also they had a couple of small business owners on being interviewed and they were frustrated because they didn't have access to cash to see their business through hard times. One was a bike shop and the other was a dog kennel? I mean COME ON! What the hell is going on in America? If you run a business you should be able to survive on your own through good times and bad. After all, it's not like society needs another bike shop or another fancy dog kennel. People say our country i.e. tax payers should support small businesses. HELL NO! I don't need my hard earned tax dollars going to support failing business models and irresponsible business owners be it multinational corporations or mom and pop shops. If you run a business you should have type of business that makes you enough money and profit to weather the ups and downs of 21st century economy. I think everyone i.e. individuals and businesses have become a bunch of sponges. We talk about individuals on welfare. Well some of these small businesses are no different than individuals who take advantage of welfare. Just one more reason why the government doesn't solve anything and makes things worse. Propping up worthless small businesses. Let's support small businesses that actually PRODUCE much needed services and products.

We don't have a free market anymore that's for sure.
Grow it, mine it, or build it. What kind of jobs are a dog kennel and a bike shop going to produce anyways?

[edit on 6-12-2009 by Zosynspiracy]

On the 11,000 you have to add in new jobs created. So add some holiday jobs, lose more real jobs. Net change.
Either way they try to spin this, at the end of the day we still had losses.

I fully understand your frustration with the concept of propping up “failing” businesses. I believe in free markets as you do however there is a good reason for taking action in our current economic tempest. There are so many people losing their unemployment benefits, leading them to lose their home, and all wealth they tirelessly built over the last decade. These losses when multiplied by millions of families are causing the economic disaster.

Never has the phrase, "We're all in this thing together," been so true.

Losing the local businesses is more damaging than you think. Smaller businesses usually pay better than say Wal-Mart type stores. They treat their employees better, and they usually gateway workers into better jobs. We gave money to the banks; they in turn should be lending that to the businesses that need it.

If you have kids to feed you do what ever it takes.
Offer that bike shop job to someone who has lost their unemployment benefits and see what response you get.

Edit Spelling
[edit on 6-12-2009 by Absum!]

[edit on 6-12-2009 by Absum!]

Originally posted by Zosynspiracy
I just saw a statistic on CNN this morning that stated small businesses with less than 50 employees laid off a total of 68,000 people in November. I thought they said the total unemployment number for November was 11,000? How many TOTAL people were laid off in November? Did it only jump by 11,000 from the previous month. There were still what.......? Over a 100,000 laid off for the month? I'm confused.

Also they had a couple of small business owners on being interviewed and they were frustrated because they didn't have access to cash to see their business through hard times. One was a bike shop and the other was a dog kennel? I mean COME ON! What the hell is going on in America? If you run a business you should be able to survive on your own through good times and bad. After all, it's not like society needs another bike shop or another fancy dog kennel. People say our country i.e. tax payers should support small businesses. HELL NO! I don't need my hard earned tax dollars going to support failing business models and irresponsible business owners be it multinational corporations or mom and pop shops. If you run a business you should have type of business that makes you enough money and profit to weather the ups and downs of 21st century economy. I think everyone i.e. individuals and businesses have become a bunch of sponges. We talk about individuals on welfare. Well some of these small businesses are no different than individuals who take advantage of welfare. Just one more reason why the government doesn't solve anything and makes things worse. Propping up worthless small businesses. Let's support small businesses that actually PRODUCE much needed services and products.

We don't have a free market anymore that's for sure.
Grow it, mine it, or build it. What kind of jobs are a dog kennel and a bike shop going to produce anyways?

[edit on 6-12-2009 by Zosynspiracy]

They produce jobs that house and feed millions of American's. THey produce jobs that allow people to spend money keeping the big businesses running. During the good times it was no big deal to take your dog to be groomed or your Harley in for some groovy upgrades. Now people are grooming their own dogs and selling their Harley's or leaving the dog at the pound and going without that new peice of chrome. I am not for proping up poor business planners but many of the succesful mom and pops are what really make the economy go around and around. We are seeing another domino affect of the collapse. John looses his cushy corprate job and a year later all savings are depleted so John can longer go to Sallys once a week and get his dog's nails painted, there are so many John's that Sally cannot stay in business so she closes shop and three part time employees who are attending college loose their jobs and the dominos keep falling affecting everything because now these three kids cannot pay there cell phone bills, buy gas, order pizza and then the poor pizza delivery boy looses his job and so on and so forth. Many of these small businesses did not pay unemployment tax (there are exemptions) so the employees that lost their jobs are not counted by the Gov't. The Gov't only counts those that are signed up and qualified for benefits for any given month. In all honesty unemployment is probably above 20% now.