300,000 jobs created in past quarter

Washington Times ^ | Saturday, November 8, 2003 | By Patrice Hill

[JohnHuang2]

The unemployment rate declined to 6 percent in October as businesses created nearly 300,000 jobs in the past three months

[JohnHuang2]

Saturday, November 8, 2003

Quote of the Day by TigersEye

[expat_panama]

Great post! Great 'toons too-- "bon appétit" indeed.

[ChadGore]

Woohooo!

[SamAdams76]

I've noticed that some of the restaurants I regularly go to are short-handed and have "Help Wanted" signs out. This tells me that some of their employees have moved on to higher-paying jobs. Traffic jams on the highways around Boston have increased also - there's always a downside to any economic recovery. I'll take it though.

[doosee]

The Democrats are becoming very distressed that the tax cuts as well as typical business cycles are starting to take effect for the good. Ping to Richard W., are you still beating the doom drum now?

[zook]

Call Franken. Ask him if we can extrapolate 1.5 million jobs by the end of 04.

[arete]

The Democrats are becoming very distressed that the tax cuts as well as typical business cycles are starting to take effect for the good. Ping to Richard W., are you still beating the doom drum now?

I remain very skeptical of the recovery illusion. The Challenger report stated that company layoffs set a record for Oct. Let's see if any of this is sustainable.

Richard W.

[Iowegian]

...when economic growth soared at a blockbuster 7.2 percent rate on a one-time boost from tax rebates.

Great news, but this is wrong. The rebates gave us our money a little earlier than we would have received it, but tax rates were lowered for future years and child credit was increased for future years also, therefore it is not a one-time boost.

[Willie Green]

But yesterday's report showed that income growth was tapering off without any growth in jobs. The yearly rate of wage gains dropped dramatically in the past two years from more than 4 percent to 2.4 percent — the lowest in a decade. The increase in take-home pay provided by President Bush's tax cuts served mostly to mask the marked downtrend in wage income, economists said....
"This time around, however, it is an indication of structural change in the labor markets. Businesses can no longer afford the costly burden of health and pension benefits."

Well, at least some economists are warning about the shift to a lower standard of living.

The Administration is gonna wind up with egg on it's face for all the hoopla over a bunch of low-wage and low-benefit McJobs.

Consumer debt increases in Sept. by largest amount since January

The new jobs added last month mostly were in lower-paying industries such as retail and temporary employment firms. Average weekly earnings in those sectors are $366 and $318 respectively, said John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray and Christmas, an employment research and recruiting firm. The national average is $521 per week." (Source)

Consumers can't afford very much debt on a WalMart wage.

There is no reason to believe that the debt-inflated service employment bubble is sustainable.
Especially with low-wage service sector jobs.