Ever More Unemployment 45 comments
an article to
-
Font Size:
-
Print
- TweetThis
I knew this morning’s jobs report was going to be depressing — and with unemployment rising from 8.5% to 8.9% last month, I was right. But the unemployment rate among adult men is even worse. Here’s the relevant bit of the release:
As you can see, as recently as February, adult men were no more likely to be unemployed than the population as a whole. In the past couple of months, however, a nasty gap has opened up, and it’s widening.
Yes, unemployment is a lagging indicator. But with adult-male unemployment rapidly approaching 10%, it’s also going to be a serious drag on the economy for the foreseeable future: households with unemployed men are not exactly engines of economic recovery.
Incidentally, the other unemployment measure worth keeping an eye on, U6, a broader measure of underemployment, hit 15.8% last month, up from 13.5% in December. So while the headline payrolls number might have fallen less than economists had expected, I can’t really see any green shoots here.
Related Articles
|
-
The Seeking Alpha 100
See allThe top 100 stock
market authors
selected for publication in the last week
Seeking Alpha 100 » -
Fastest Climbers
Those with the largestSee all
increase in followers
in the last week
Fastest Climbers » -
Top Commenters
Top commenters,See all
as ranked by their peers
Top Commenters » -
Top Instabloggers
The 100 most activeSee all
Instabloggers.
Top Instabloggers » -
Top StockTalkers
TopSee all
StockTalkers.
Top StockTalkers »
First, let me say I agree wholeheartedly with you. I am curious however, how you would respond to those that say that we've peaked with new unemployment claims and that historically economic recovery has followed close on the heels of this peak?
zerohedge.blogspot.com...
Employment lags recovery, not the other way around.
Maybe more important, the high rate of unemployment has forced what I believe are secular changes in consuming habits. Households will be (as they have been for the last year) more conservative in their purchases even as the economy tries to recover. This will hold down both the recovery rate and keep the unemployment rate high.
It's going to be awhile before we get out of this hole, healthy banks or no.
With everyone trying to talk up the market and afraid to sneeze since the "green shoots" might wither and die, forgive me for being cynical.
Government added 72,000 jobs, mostly temporary census jobs. State and local governments added 6,000 jobs, despite widespread accounts of layoffs
Ridiculous that the government gets to use these numbers... ridiculous that they get to keep hiring. Does the government report them as job losses when the temporary worker gets laid off?
So much manipulation. 72K in a month for census? Really?
www.youtube.com/watch?...
> "The feeling is definitely there. It's a new morning in America.
> Fresh, vital...the old cynicism is gone. We have faith in our leaders.
> We're optimistic as to what becomes of it all. It really comes down
> to our ability to accept. We don't need pessimism. There are no
> limits. We must look to the strength of our nation."
>
> www.youtube.com/watch?...;feature=related
Watch out for those green chutes. Soylent Green is people!
5/7/2009 11:20:00 PM
Cummins to lay off 720
By Boris Ladwig
City Editor
Cummins Inc. will lay off 720 south-central Indiana employees and halt production at Columbus MidRange Engine Plant for at least a month while Chrysler limps through bankruptcy.
A Cummins spokesman said Cummins does not know when - or if - Chrysler will purchase more of the engines - though Cummins remains optimistic that the iconic Ram truck and the companies' long-lasting and profitable relationship will continue.
The midrange plant is the exclusive supplier of 6.7-liter engines for the Dodge Ram pickup truck. Chrysler is idling the Ram plant in Saltillo, Mexico, while the company is being reorganized.
On May 08 11:04 AM SW Richmond wrote:
> "The feeling is definitely there. It's a new morning in America.
> Fresh, vital...the old cynicism is gone. We have faith in our leaders.
> We're optimistic as to what becomes of it all. It really comes down
> to our ability to accept. We don't need pessimism. There are no
> limits. We must look to the strength of our nation."
>
> www.youtube.com/watch?...;feature=related
> Employment lags recovery, not the other way around.
Question: Will this be the case during a balance sheet recession like the one we're in now? Certainly, during an "income statement" recession, employment has lagged recovery. With so much debt (corporate, household, governmental) to pay off, is this addage still appropriate? Households, for example, won't be able to pay off their debt if its adult members are unemployed.
On May 08 11:16 AM americafirst wrote:
> I hate to bust your bubble........
>
> 5/7/2009 11:20:00 PM
>
> Cummins to lay off 720
>
> By Boris Ladwig
> City Editor
>
> Cummins Inc. will lay off 720 south-central Indiana employees and
> halt production at Columbus MidRange Engine Plant for at least a
> month while Chrysler limps through bankruptcy.
>
> A Cummins spokesman said Cummins does not know when - or if - Chrysler
> will purchase more of the engines - though Cummins remains optimistic
> that the iconic Ram truck and the companies' long-lasting and profitable
> relationship will continue.
>
> The midrange plant is the exclusive supplier of 6.7-liter engines
> for the Dodge Ram pickup truck. Chrysler is idling the Ram plant
> in Saltillo, Mexico, while the company is being reorganized.
coming in May, the shutdowns of GM and Chrysler will be added to the unemployment total.
and coming in June, the shutdowns of the auto part makers and dealerships, along with the transplant plants will be added to the list.
and in July, we can add media companies and those who sell to the car companies employees!.
and in August the sports organizations will add to the total!
employers. The government should raise taxes by a like amount
on any business sending jobs overseas and importing foreign workers. The carrot-and-stick approach should help to increase
employment. This current government probably won't do this, of course; it is just too easy to print fresh dollars.
The amount of job additions in productive non-government jobs to recover these is decades away
How can the MONTHLY job-losses be much less than ONE WEEK of officially announced lay-offs (in the WEEKLY jobs report)?
When the weekly lay-offs were only 300,000/week (last year), the U.S. economy was still suffering NET job losses over the course of a month. With weekly lay-offs more than DOUBLING, the monthly job-loss "statistic" from the BLS is not even remotely plausible.
Ignore the propaganda and start to pay attention to the REAL data!!
"Question: Will this be the case during a balance sheet recession like the one we're in now? Certainly, during an "income statement" recession, employment has lagged recovery. With so much debt (corporate, household, governmental) to pay off, is this addage still appropriate? Households, for example, won't be able to pay off their debt if its adult members are unemployed."
The trajectory is inflation, higher taxes, more public spending, until private sector shrinks to 48% of GDP in 2015, which is an absolute ceiling of maximum sacrifice equal to WWII peak years 1943-44.
The 1979 'Winter of Discontent' in Britain gave Margaret Thatcher an opportunity to privatize, using North Sea oil revenues to smooth over funding problems. America will never be an energy exporter, so that silver bullet solution doesn't exist.
We're in a hell of a jam because of Social Security and Medicare, our 'world cop' spending, and unpayable debt (Federal + states + municipalities). Selling assets in not a good solution. We shipped whole factories to China, outsourced manufacturing to Mexico. Not much left to sell except financial services and consumer brands.
The only way to put people in employment is to cut government in half, not double it. Put Citi, BofA, AIG and GSEs into receivership, instead of printing more debt (and outright lies). We need another Ross Perot.
Great fundamentals...
Market is surging though but a sustainable economic plan is not on the table.