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A look through a variety of online news media this morning (BBC, DT, Washington Post, Business Week, Fox, Reuters etc.) show an uncanny similarity in the reports of the US job figures: "Unemployment rate falls to 8.3%, to lowest level for three years"; these are the official figures so they are jumped on for news; most add comments to the effect that this is nothing but good for Obama and of course re-election. What none of them say, but maybe they will later today when they bother to check (check the 11 or so comments under this DT article for instance) is that the good figures are on the back of "the largest absolute jump in 'Persons Not In Labor Force' on record...and biggest percentage jump in 30 years."; an unprecedented 1.2 million people dropped out of the US work force in one month! [Zero Hedge].
Similar non-MSM info at The Market Ticker here and Mish's Global Economic Analysis here.
5 comments:
How many are real jobs with a living wage? How many have been forced into working for rubbish companies?
How many jobs are subsidised in some way. Whatever statistically...it looks good.
That pleases the Government and business world alike.
Media types say this could help Obama get a second term in office.
I should add just as the disabled, vulnerable and disadvantaged are unhappy with cahnges to welfare in the UK some media types think that politicians in the US are in for a surprise as to what power or unrest the "Poor" of the US may cause some time soon and they have not seen nothing yet.
Agreed! and I don't mean 'a greed'! Some of the comments on zero hedge say exactly that, many of the jobs are part-time etc, going exactly the same route as the UK.
The thing that worries me about employment figures isn't so much the political massaging but the fact that there is always confusion between people who are unemployed and people who are not working which are two different things, I saw somebody claim the other day that in the UK the real unemployment figures at the height of the recessions in the 1980's and 1990's was 8 million not that 3-4 million that appears in the history books.
It's strange how what goes around comes around because the other day I was remembering how in the 1990's we were told that unemployment was rising but the underlying trend was downward now we have a situation where that is reversed. What happens with jobsharing? I mean there is only one job but two people do it so does one person still appear on the jobless of employed figures?
And another problem is that so many jobs are still subsidised by the Government still having to top up the wages of many who work instead of employers paying a decent wage.
Good points Paul...
And Span, you are right that many jobs are part time. I couldn't manage full time and I'd have to hope I could live on such an income if I had absolutely no choice.
But for a person trying to raise a family or trying to maintain a decent standard of living...this must be a time bomb ticking and again how much longer can they keep putting back the age the population retires?
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