Economic Rebound Just In Time For Elections?, page 1

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Topic started on 3-2-2012 @ 08:19 AM by Rockpuck

Today we are seeing another big monthly gain in jobs, and, as a result the unemployment rate is declining.

Unemployment fell from 8.6% to 8.3%.
243,000 jobs gained.

The 243,000 increase in payrolls was the most since April and exceeded all forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey, Labor Department figures showed in Washington. The unemployment rate dropped to 8.3 percent, the lowest since February 2009.

www.bloomberg.com...
Anywhere from 5-6% is considered "healthy" 7-8% is considered fair to bad. So already the economy is entering the phase where the economy is considered "alright but needs a little improvement" ... even though we are short 5.4 MILLION jobs than we were in 2008? On average the USA generates approx 1.8 million jobs in a year. Since 2008 that would be a deficit of 12.6 million jobs.

At the current pace of job growth it is going to take us years to get out of the debt of jobs we have in this country. Not only do we need employment for all the people who lost their job, we also need to find employment for the hundreds of thousands every year that graduate college, or the millions that immigrate here every year.

And for the Obamafanatics out there you're lucky. By Novemember the Unemployment rate should be around 7.5-7.8% at current trends, meaning the economy will be nearing "good" stage. Even though there will still be millions of unemployed workers, and the economy still will be !@$^.

The unemployment rate, derived from a separate survey of households, was forecast to hold at 8.5 percent, according to the survey median. The drop in the jobless rate reflected a 381,000 decrease in unemployment at the same time 250,000 Americans entered the labor force.

Yeah. You read that right. Government numbers make me sick.

reply posted on 3-2-2012 @ 08:24 AM by Open_Minded Skeptic

Originally posted by Rockpuck
And for the Obamafanatics out there you're lucky. By Novemember the Unemployment rate should be around 7.5-7.8% at current trends, meaning the economy will be nearing "good" stage. Even though there will still be millions of unemployed workers, and the economy still will be !@$^.

Not sure that recognizing that our current problems are the end result of "Bushonomics" and unfettered military adventurism, or that recognizing that the US government in general, and the GOP in particular does NOT have the best interests of the majority of the country at heart makes me an Obamafanatic, but any improvement over what we have going on is welcome in my book.

And yeah, digesting gov't supplied numbers does take discretion and a cast-iron stomach...

reply posted on 3-2-2012 @ 09:18 AM by Deetermined

Professional and business services continued to add jobs in January (+70,000).
About half of the increase occurred in employment services (+33,000).
Job gains also occurred in accounting and bookkeeping (+13,000)
and in architectural and engineering services (+7,000)

We expected in increase as tax season nears, but 33,000 for employment services? Is the future job trend going to be helping everyone else find a job?

I'll be interested in seeing January's Mass Layoff report when it comes out around February 22nd. For the last three years, the month of January has held the highest layoff numbers for the year.

So, in December we saw an employment increase of 200,000 but we saw 145,648 laid off.

If January is historically worse, I see a big chunk of that increase disappearing too.

reply posted on 3-2-2012 @ 09:32 AM by Rockpuck

reply to post by Deetermined

A huge trend in the country right now is temp to hire, which is causing temp to hire firms to explode with business. Bigger corporations do not want to hire someone on and pay them benefits or have them hard to remove. So they hire them through an agency, paying a premium ontop of the wage, and don't have to pay payroll taxes, benefits, retirement, vacation, even sickdays. Miss a day for any reason and you're canned. This way, aside from saving money, if 6 months down the road when the average contract expires they can either decide you're worth it, or have the firm "relocate" you and take on a new person.

With all these unemployed people, why not take advantage of them, right?

reply posted on 3-2-2012 @ 09:33 AM by Rockpuck

reply to post by Open_Minded Skeptic

Don't get me wrong, I'd never vote for Romney, but already I'm sick of Democrats cheering a falling unemployment number when it's a fictional number bearing no meaning to begin with. Unemployment still stands at around 20%.

reply posted on 3-2-2012 @ 09:39 AM by Open_Minded Skeptic

reply to post by Rockpuck

Right there with ya...

This constant game of trying to determine the least evil, then trying to figure the odds of a vote even counting at all and a few dozen other factors has me just about on the sidelines...

reply posted on 3-2-2012 @ 09:55 AM by Open_Minded Skeptic

reply to post by Rockpuck

And as someone who works for a company that has this practice, I can say it is a false economy.

Having temps come in and work for a while then be forced to leave generates a constant stream of new people coming online.

Most of them are very competent and diligent, but coming in cold to a complex environment. It doesn't matter how smart or diligent they are, it takes a while for a new person to get up to speed.

Then, just about the time they are really familiar with the work and are starting to be productive, bang, their time is up and they are gone and we start all over with the new batch.

I'm sure this practice looks good from a bean counter perspective, in the short term. But it is not an effective long-term way to approach at least my field of endeavor.

And the next time the CEO of the company for which I work calls me up and asks my opinion on how to run the place, I'll be sure to tell him this...

reply posted on 3-2-2012 @ 10:04 AM by Rockpuck

reply to post by Open_Minded Skeptic

Not to mention that when you move from unemployed to a temp hire you're considered "working".. when you move from a temp hire to unemployed you disappear. The Government has absolutely no classification for you. Most Government sources only count those working for an actual firm, usually for a minimum of 9 months (3 quarters) or a full year.

Also, in most states you cannot claim unemployment from being terminated via a temp agency.

Temp agencies are a huge plus for the unemployment number.. but it's where the unemployed fall into a black hole where you're never seen or heard of again until you're hired somewhere else.

A bank I used to work for had all the people under me temp to hire. It was a nice way to weed out bad people, but when I'd beg for them to let me keep someone it never fit in the budget and they'd rotate them out. Eventually they just fired the entire department, something like 350 people. Myself included. Bastards.

reply posted on 3-2-2012 @ 11:03 AM by snowspirit

reply to post by Rockpuck

Not to mention that when you move from unemployed to a temp hire you're considered "working".. when you move from a temp hire to unemployed you disappear. The Government has absolutely no classification for you. Most Government sources only count those working for an actual firm, usually for a minimum of 9 months (3 quarters) or a full year.

It sure makes you wonder what the REAL unemployed numbers are.
www.zerohedge.com...

A month ago, we joked when we said that for Obama to get the unemployment rate to negative by election time, all he has to do is to crush the labor force participation rate to about 55%. Looks like the good folks at the BLS heard us: it appears that the people not in the labor force exploded by an unprecedented record 1.2 million. No, that's not a typo: 1.2 million people dropped out of the labor force in one month!

Economic rebound.
Sure.

reply posted on 3-2-2012 @ 11:10 AM by Chrisfishenstein

reply to post by Rockpuck

Yeah isn't that something? Everything just so happens to be in time for re election!! I just heard pictures of Osama Bin Laden death are supposed to be coming up soon too!! JUST IN TIME.....

Don't fall for the B.S. Everyone!!

Vote Ron Paul and save the U.S.

reply posted on 3-2-2012 @ 02:14 PM by AnIntellectualRedneck

Just masking the truth. The labor participation rate declined, and the number of part time and temp jobs has soared.

The main thing is that people are dropping out of the labor force left and right.

reply posted on 3-2-2012 @ 08:37 PM by Rockpuck

reply to post by snowspirit

It pisses me off to see the Government purposefully using numbers to mask the state of the economy.. it's taking advantage of average people. The vast majority of Americans don't even know how unemployment is calculated, or that the Federal Government has absolutely no way of really knowing "who's looking for work" that it's an elaborate guesstimate. Or that the Federal Government only produces one copy of yearly job gains and losses and that's a year and a half after the year even ends by calculating tax filings. Monthly job reports above all else are a joke. But they use it against the people anyways.

But the thing is.. eventually, when the unemployment rate is lower around 7%, or even now at 8.3% .. people KNOW somethings not right.. even if they have no idea how the economy works, how the gov comes up with these numbers, etc. All they know is they need work, and there are not enough jobs. And college grads like me know we are paying a mortgage worth of student loans every month with no job prospects in sight. Look around the World and all the unrest that has swept Europe and the Middle East has been the 20's population. How long does the US Government seriously think they can lie to us while pushing debt onto our shoulders and expect us to be content about it?

Sorry.. ranting..

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