Posted on 05/06/2012 1:48:21 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
For the second month in a row, weak job growth numbers unsettled nerves in the White House and on Wall Street.
It's obvious why the number of jobs added to the economy in April was disappointing. Employment grew by just 115,000. That followed a disappointing job gain in March. Together, the March and April average was only about half the 250,000 jobs added monthly in December, January and February.
Again, economists suggested the warm winter weather might have boosted job growth during the winter months, which left fewer jobs to be added in the spring.
However, at first glance there appeared to be a silver lining in April's numbers: The unemployment rate inched down again to 8.1 percent.
"For the last couple of months we have a situation where the unemployment rate is still declining, but that's because people are leaving the workforce," says Gary Burtless, a labor economist at the Brookings Institution.
He says it's usually good news when the unemployment rate drops, because lots of people are getting hired, but that wasn't the case in April.
Some people might have left the workforce because they reached retirement age, and it's possible they weren't replaced by young people, who may have decided to stay in school because the job market is still dicey.
Yet there's no doubt many people left the workforce because they're discouraged. After months of looking, they still couldn't find a job. Kate Riley, a former health spa manager from the San Francisco Bay area, is one of them.
"I was sending out anywhere between 5 and 10 resumes weekly; was getting ignored for probably half of them, but the half that did respond the comments were very complimentary for my expertise and my experience and they did want to talk to me," she says.
In some cases Riley even went through half a dozen interviews with a potential employer. But after more than a year of looking in the spa industry, Riley, who's 61 years old, never got a job offer.
"Someone else was getting chosen because they fit the culture better and I recently realized that that was code for I'm older and it doesn't fit the image that they want to project," she says.
Last week Riley decided to stop looking.
"It was somewhat humiliating and very depressing," she says. "It was a shock to realize this isn't working, because I tend to push on and push through and last week when I just decided to stop, it was an emotional change for me."
So, after a long successful career, Riley, like a lot of people in today's job market, is going to have to find a new path.
Transcript
SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Scott Simon. Weak job growth numbers riled nerves in the White House and on Wall Street yesterday for the second month in a row. Now, we'll talk about the political implications in a few minutes. But first, NPR economics correspondent John Ydstie explains why a report that showed a drop in the unemployment rate was not viewed as good news.
JOHN YDSTIE, BYLINE: It's obvious why the number of jobs added to the economy in April was disappointing. Employment grew by just 115,000. That followed a disappointing job gain in March, and together, the March and April average was only about half the 250,000 jobs added monthly in December, January and February. Again, economists suggested that the warm winter weather might have boosted job growth during the winter months, which left fewer jobs to be added in the spring.
However, at first glance there appeared to be a silver lining in April's numbers - the unemployment rate inched down again to 8.1 percent. Gary Burtless, a labor economist at the Brookings Institution says it is good news when the unemployment rate drops because lots of people are getting hired, but that wasn't the case in April.
GARY BURTLESS: For the last couple of months, we have a situation where the unemployment rate is still declining, but that's because people are leaving the workforce.
YDSTIE: Now, some people might have left the workforce because they reached retirement age, and it's possible they weren't replaced by young people. They may have decided to stay in school because the job market is still dicey. But there's no doubt many people left the workforce because they're discouraged. After months of looking, they still couldn't find a job. Kate Riley, a former health spa manager from the San Francisco Bay area, is one of them.
KATE RILEY: I was sending out anywhere between five and ten resumes weekly, was getting ignored for probably half of them, but the half that did respond, the comments were very complimentary for my expertise and my experience and they did want to talk to me.
YDSTIE: In some cases Riley even went through half a dozen interviews with a potential employer. But after more than a year of looking in the spa industry, Riley, who's 61 years old, never got a job offer.
RILEY: Someone else was getting chosen because they fit the culture better and I recently realized that that was code for I'm older and it doesn't fit their image, what they want to project.
YDSTIE: So last week Riley decided to stop looking.
RILEY: Out of the job market completely.
YDSTIE: That must feel a little strange.
RILEY: It's not only strange, but it was somewhat humiliating and very depressing. It was a shock to realize this isn't working, because I tend to push on and push through and last week when I just decided to stop, it was an emotional change for me.
YDSTIE: So after a long successful career, Riley, like a lot of people in today's job market, is going to have to find a new path.
I’m 59 and have been looking for a job for a few years now.
I’ve been on several interviews but have had no offers yet.
I know the feeling.
This report from NPR? more bad news for F M Davis’ son.
All i can say is God Bless and keep the faith.
Kate sounds like someone I recently got to know. She had high hopes 0bama could help her, but like Kate, also cannot find a job. Her name is Julia...
The 60's generation turns 60! Get a check and roll one. What could be better. /sarc
1. Too much expansion of government under Obama.
2. Not fixing the economy-sapping income tax system.
3. Continued sovereign debt problems in Europe.
Is why the US economy is NOT recovering. To really fix the economy, we must do two things:
1. Audit every government agency for bureaucratic overlap, agency bloat and unneeded/obsolete regulations and use the audit results to cut government size substantially--possibly as high as 30%.
2. Massively overhaul national taxation in the USA. We must right now implement starting the 2013 tax year the no-loophole flat-tax plan that Steve Forbes proposed in 1996 (he described it in a book written in 2005), and begin a transition process that on January 1, 2016, the income tax is phased out by repealing the 16th Amendment and we implement something like FairTax (H.R. 25/S. 13) so the process of earning money is no longer taxed, which would make the USA the #1 place on Earth to operate a business in terms of taxation burden.
You’re not alone. I’m in the same situation.
UNEXPECTED!!!!!
Seriously..government is the only thing that has grown in the last 5 years. Government regulates. Each regulation, somewhere, increases the cost of putting a job together.
It’s only a continual SUPRISE!SUPRISE! For the Gomer’s in DC....
The media, academia, the urban cocktail crowd, many minorities and those who politically use them for personal gain, the entertainment elite, all of these adhere to a philosophy that holds that inequity is always the results of unfairness - and government is the answer. This is inherently wrong, but has become such a mainstream mantra that it is seldom challenged.
NPR plucked the Rosy Picture - it should be hard to put that Rose back on the Obama Administration-Stem.
(although NPR are pretty adept at graphing roses back to life in the past)
How do we get the millions who’ve jumped from unemployment to disability off the disability roles? That shift gave them a cash flow, but it hides them from the unemployment numbers and drains the public coffers.
True in the past, but the terrifying European sovereign debt problems due to overly-generous government social services now has shaken that belief. Indeed, even François Hollande, the likely next President of France, has to realize that old Socialist tenants don't work, either, and he has little wiggle room on just how to revive the French economy.
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