The economy added another 288,000 jobs in April, with the unemployment rate now at 5.6% (the rate at Clinton's reelection). That's a gain of 1,088,000 jobs since July 2003. Let's look at the numbers.
Posted on 05/07/2004 6:21:29 AM PDT by Bubba_Leroy
Employers added 288,000 jobs to their payrolls in April as the nation's unemployment rate slipped to 5.6 percent, reinforcing hopes for a sustained turnaround in the jobs market that had lagged for so long.
Payrolls have risen now for eight straight months, with 867,000 new jobs created so far this year, the Labor Department (news - web sites) reported Friday. The strengthening jobs market comes just in time to aid President Bush (news - web sites)'s re-election efforts, which were in question a few months ago based on his economic record.
Bush is on track to be the first president since the Great Depression to have lost jobs under his watch. But the hiring gains in recent months have shrunk those losses to about 1.5 million.
Hiring was widespread last month, with the service sector leading the way. Professional and business services employment rose substantially, by 123,000. In that category, gains were in employment services, including temporary help firms, services to buildings and dwellings, management and technical consulting services and architectural and engineering services.
The nation's struggling factories also appear to be turning around. Based on Labor Department revisions, the manufacturing sector added jobs for three straight months, including 21,000 in April. For the year, manufacturing payrolls are up by 27,000 overall.
The unemployment rate fell 0.1 percentage point to 5.6 percent last month, after reaching a high of 6.3 percent in June 2003 during the economic downturn.
Revisions to payrolls also showed a stronger jobs market than previously reported. Last month's 308,000 payroll gains were revised up to 337,000. April's showing surprised analysts, who had expected payrolls of about 180,000 to 200,000.
The economy has rebounded strongly, but companies, under intense pressure to compete globally, have been holding down their costs by working employees harder instead of hiring new ones. That appears to be changing, though critics note that job gains are occurring in the lower-paying service sector at retailers and restaurants, and in temporary employment firms.
The Federal Reserve (news - web sites) decided Tuesday to hold a key interest rate at a 46-year low of 1 percent, saying said such low rates along with productivity gains are helping to support economic activity.
But the strengthening jobs market leads economists to anticipate the first rate increases in more than four years will start this summer, probably in August, and will come in the form of one-quarter of a percentage point rises in the federal funds rate.
Other gains in April occurred in retail at building and garden supply stores, general merchandise stores and motor vehicle and parts dealers. The leisure and hospitality sector also added jobs, especially in the category of food services. Hiring also continued to be strong in health care and social assistance for the month.
Me, I wasn't counted until last month, though we have a number of self-employment sources, and add to this now my regular position, and we are doing way better than we were before the downturn. In fact, I have become two: We've had to hire someone to work our other business full time because we can't keep up with it. Things were bad for us, and we complained alot about it at the time, of course. But we're palpably better off now than we were then, turned something bad into something good because we would never have thought of starting the businesses we did, and now we have those AND a regular job. Pretty nifty.
Signed,
The economy created 288,000 "McJobs".
Robert Reich tried to spin it this way on CNBC today, although even he had to admit that the jobs news is good.
How many of these 288,000 "jobs" are full time with benefits? That's what I want to know.
The economy added another 288,000 jobs in April, with the unemployment rate now at 5.6% (the rate at Clinton's reelection). That's a gain of 1,088,000 jobs since July 2003. Let's look at the numbers.
1 Month Net Change Series Id: CES0000000001  |
|||||||||||||
| Year | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Annual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1994 | 270 | 192 | 468 | 357 | 339 | 310 | 359 | 303 | 354 | 206 | 425 | 270 | |
| 1995 | 321 | 211 | 220 | 163 | -9 | 227 | 71 | 278 | 239 | 149 | 144 | 140 | |
| 1996 | -18 | 435 | 255 | 165 | 329 | 271 | 228 | 203 | 218 | 238 | 292 | 177 | |
| 1997 | 229 | 294 | 317 | 291 | 262 | 246 | 276 | -7 | 506 | 339 | 307 | 298 | |
| 1998 | 268 | 185 | 148 | 278 | 401 | 205 | 121 | 355 | 221 | 192 | 285 | 344 | |
| 1999 | 113 | 396 | 124 | 382 | 214 | 257 | 295 | 193 | 187 | 422 | 295 | 294 | |
| 2000 | 194 | 146 | 493 | 308 | 231 | -25 | 160 | -28 | 89 | 30 | 183 | 124 | |
| 2001 | -53 | 104 | 15 | -271 | 1 | -150 | -115 | -141 | -267 | -361 | -332 | -212 | |
| 2002 | -165 | -90 | 43 | -68 | 2 | 25 | -111 | 11 | -47 | 83 | -37 | -209 | |
| 2003 | 94 | -159 | -110 | -20 | -28 | -14 | -45 | -25 | 67 | 88 | 83 | 8 | |
| 2004 | 159 | 83 | 337(p) | 288(p) | |||||||||
| p : preliminary |
|||||||||||||
Signed,
John F'ing Kerry"
His ex-boss Michael Dikakis used the same line in 1988, and now you know the rest of the story.
I believe Carter is considered retired rather than unemployed. Kind of Presidentus emeritus.
I've got to agree with Bubba Leroy on this one. The published title of the article, "Companies Add 288,000 Jobs to Payrolls," consisted of five words. Only one of them, "288,000," was used in the title of the earlier post. It makes it really heard to search for prior posts of an article if you have to search individually for each and every word in the title.
It is a hellovalot easier to check for prior posts of articles if people will simply post them using the actual titles.
That must be when employers first realized that Clinton was no longer President and immediately started laying off workers.
In the past 8 months over a million jobs have been added. Gosh, that makes it hard for the Democrats to run on their usual "its the worst economy since the Great Depression" line.
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