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President Obama is like a pilot who took the controls of the plane in mid-flight after the engines fell out. It’s obvious that he didn’t cause the problem. But the passengers are going to focus on the fact that the plane was still airborne before he took over, and now, he’s crash-landing in the ocean. That’s Obama’s problem in the debate over the economy. His arguments are true. The trouble is, they don’t feel true, and they feel less and less true as time goes by. Republicans focus relentlessly on the simple fact that the economy is in worse shape...

South Carolina’s economy shed more jobs in November as the holiday season got under way, with the unemployment rate jumping to 12.3%, in a month when the national jobless rate dropped 0.2 percentage point to 10.0%. The state Employment Security Commission said November’s 0.3-percentage-point increase in jobless figures set a record for the state. Estimates by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics numbered the state’s labor force at 2,173,054 in November, an increase of 2,079. The number of unemployed increased 5,896 to 266,330. The Employment Security Commission is now taking claims from people who might be eligible for additional benefits....

The unemployment rate dropped last month for men and women, blacks and whites, lifting hopes that the long dry spell in the jobs market may be coming to an end. But for recent college graduates and other young adults, the labor situation didn't just remain dire -- it got worse. For 20- to 24-year-olds, the jobless rate rose four-tenths of a percent to 16% in November, even as unemployment nationally slipped to 10% from 10.2%. And data from the Labor Department show that the unemployment figure for college graduates in that age group was 10.6% in the third quarter --...

In a sign that employers are beginning to dip their toes into the hiring waters, a rising number of temp jobs helped shrink November's total job losses to 11,000, a figure small enough for officials to consider employment numbers essentially unchanged for the month. The unemployment rate fell by 0.2 percentage point to 10 percent. The data were far better than economists' forecasts of 125,000 jobs lost and an unchanged unemployment rate. Still, there are plenty of data below the surface headline numbers that flesh out a fuller picture of the job market's progress. Here are five things to know...

With unemployment at its highest rate in a generation, Washington's policymakers are zooming in this week on a thorny part of the problem: Starved for credit and sales, small companies aren't hiring. Businesses with fewer than 50 employees cut another 68,000 workers in November, according to a report released Wednesday by payroll processor ADP (ADP, Fortune 500). Small companies have collectively shed 2 million workers over the last 12 months. That's a sizeable chunk of the 5.3 million jobs lost this year, according to ADP's estimates. The rate of job cuts has slowed, but economists don't anticipate a pickup in...

With data on November's unemployment rate and payroll jobs creation due to be released Friday by the Labor Department, President Obama convenes a meeting today at the White House to discuss what many Americans worry about more than health care, Afghanistan, or anything else-jobs. Mr. Obama's challenge is that his legislative and regulatory agenda dampens overall job creation. Mr. Obama's priorities, namely health reform, green jobs, high speed rail, climate change legislation, and increased unionization discourage employers from hiring. Until he abandons this interventionist agenda, the economy won't produce the jobs needed to reduce unemployment significantly. Naturally, these projects' supporters...

The pace of U.S. job losses slowed in November, according to two reports released Wednesday. Automatic Data Processing (ADP, Fortune 500), a payroll-processing firm, said private-sector employers cut 169,000 jobs in November. It was the eighth month in a row that the number of job cuts fell from the month before. The number of cuts in October was revised down to 195,000 from the previously reported 203,000. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast a loss of 150,000 jobs last month. "Looking forward, we expect several months of declines," said Joel Prakken, chairman of Macroeconomic Advisers, in a conference call. "But...

If you’re looking for a job right now, your prospects are terrible. There are six times as many Americans seeking work as there are job openings, and the average duration of unemployment — the time the average job-seeker has spent looking for work — is more than six months, the highest level since the 1930s. You might think, then, that doing something about the employment situation would be a top policy priority. But now that total financial collapse has been averted, all the urgency seems to have vanished from policy discussion, replaced by a strange passivity. There’s a pervasive sense...

President Obama recently announced that he will convene a White House summit next month to address the issue of unemployment, which rose to 10.2% in October, the highest rate in over 25 years. But perhaps even more concerning to policymakers is that employment continues to shrink substantially despite the worst of the financial crisis--extremely high risk spreads, the breakdown of interbank lending--being over. For several months, the Fed has been winding down at least some of the measures it took last fall to stabilize financial markets. And as more than 2 million jobs have been lost since the roughest patch...

Gluskin Sheff economist David Rosenberg, formerly of Merrill Lynch, thinks the unemployment rate is going to at least 12 percent, maybe even 13 percent. Optimists, Rosenberg explains, underestimate the incredible damage done to the labor market during this downturn. And even before this downturn, the economy was not generating jobs in huge numbers. If he is right, all political bets are off. I think the Democrats could lose the House and effective control of the Senate. I think you would also be talking about the rise of third party and perhaps a challenger to Obama in 2012. So here is...

"Stimulus" is in the process of turning a nasty recession into a genuine depression. The evidence is in the "Employment Situation" report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on November 6th. The "headline" unemployment rate shot up to 10.2%, the highest in more than 26 years. But the report was much worse than most people realize. The "household survey data" showed that 589,000 jobs vanished during October. This is bad enough, but the three-month moving average of changes in total employment (current month and prior two months) shows that job losses are actually accelerating. The three-month moving average...

Despite the fact that headline "payroll" job losses are significantly smaller than earlier this year, the unemployment rate spiked to 10.2% in October. This is the highest since the aftermath of the brutal 1981-1982 recession, when the jobless rate peaked at 10.8%. Many are arguing that the unemployment rate is the better indicator and that the economy is still in a great deal of trouble. So it's time once again to look at how jobs data are calculated. The Labor Department uses two completely different surveys: the payroll (or "establishment") survey and the household survey. ..... ..... Instead, we notice...

Hopefully this piece on CNN helps people relate how difficult it is to find a job to something many people have had experience doing: applying to college. The 650,000 jobs created or saved by the stimulus package so far make up only a small step toward correcting the gap between the tens of millions of unemployed people and the few openings that those people are fighting over. Even the administration's goal of creating 3.5 million jobs is far below what the economy really needs. With an official unemployment rate of 10.2 percent, the gap between the number of full-time job...

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The US unemployment rate jumped to 10.2 percent in October as 190,000 jobs were shed, the government said Friday in data highlighting ongoing struggles of an economy emerging from recession. The Labor Department report, seen as one of the best indicators of economic momentum, showed a rise in the jobless rate, up from 9.8 percent in September, to the highest since 1983. But the number of jobs lost narrowed to the lowest level in over a year. The jobless rate shot above the key 10 percent barrier for the first time since June 1983, even though the...

I saved three lives yesterday morning. No, make that four; possibly five. You see, I was driving my car to work and there were these people crossing the street in Times Square. And I could have run them over but I didn't. So, I'm claiming that those four people, possibly five, are here today because of me. Got that twisted logic? Now let's talk about tomorrow's report on jobs in this country. The Labor Department's monthly tally of employment and unemployment is dangerously close to being an incomprehensible mess. For one thing, the government now admits what I've been telling...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The number of Americans filing for initial unemployment insurance fell last week, the government said Thursday, with a total figure that was below analysts' expectations. There were 512,000 initial job claims filed in the week ended Oct. 31, down 20,000 from a revised 532,000 the previous week, the Labor Department said in a weekly report. A consensus estimate of economists surveyed by Briefing.com expected 522,000 new claims. The 4-week moving average of initial claims was 523,750, down 3,000 from the previous week's revised average of 526,750. "This report suggests that the peak for the unemployment rate...

"... the U.S. economy is likely to shed more jobs in the coming days ..."

The September unemployment stats for Michigan came out this week and they are high — as expected. Mlive.com highlighted the statistics on a municipal level, showing the five cities with the highest jobless rates are all over 25 percent. The cities of Highland Park and Pontiac, which leaned heavily on auto-related employment, had the highest unemployment with 35.2 percent of residents reportedly jobless. Both cities have declared bankruptcy in the recent past. Highland Park recently emerged from state receivership and Pontiac just slipped under state control last year. While the overall state’s unemployment rate is the highest in the nation...

One of President Obama’s top economic advisers warned on Thursday that the nation’s unemployment is likely to climb above 10 percent by the middle of next year and that job growth will remain anemic through the end of 2010. “Unemployment is likely to remain at its severely elevated level” through the end of next year, predicted Christina Romer, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, at a hearing of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress. Ms. Romer said she agreed with private sector forecasters who expect that the economy will expand at a moderate pace through the end...

WASHINGTON – The number of newly laid-off workers filing claims for jobless benefits rose more than expected last week, as employers remain reluctant to hire even with the economy showing signs of recovery. Claims had fallen in five out of the previous six weeks and most economists expect that trend to continue, but at a slow pace, as jobs remain scarce. The report is "slightly disappointing," Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, wrote in a note to clients, "but it does not change the core story, which is that ... a clear downward trend in claims has...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The number of first-time filers for unemployment insurance rose last week, snapping two weeks of significant declines, according to a government report issued Thursday. There were 531,000 initial jobless claims filed in the week ended Oct. 17, up 11,000 from an upwardly revised 520,000 the previous week, the Labor Department said in a weekly report. The week included the Columbus Day holiday. A consensus estimate of economists surveyed by Briefing.com expected 515,000 new claims. "[The initial claims figure] is somewhat surprising," wrote Jim Baird analyst at Plante Moran Financial Advisors, in a research note. "Excess slack...

With overall unemployment now at 9.8 percent and the African American unemployment rate tipping the scales at a whopping 15.4 percent, it would be a tempting but fatal mistake for corporate America to take its eye off the ball when it comes to increasing diversity within its leadership ranks. In fact, I suggest that business take a lesson from the way the NFL has used the "Rooney Rule" in recent years to improve its historically abysmal record of hiring African American head coaches. The Rooney rule, in place since 2003 and named for Pittsburgh Steelers owner and NFL diversity workforce...

Today's Jerusalem Post reports one million Africans sitting on the Israeli-Egyptian border, waiting for their chance to enter Israel illegally. They come not to suicide bomb, nor to kidnap. They simply want to work. They come seeking not vengeance, but jobs. Of course, to get from Africa to Israel, one must go through Egypt. And once in Israel, as the article makes clear, the Israelis would be happy to let, indeed help, the Africans continue on, to Lebanon, Syria, Judea, Samaria, Jordan, or Gaza. But these African workers and their families apparently have no desire to remain in Egypt or...

Businessman Steve Wynn, Chairman and CEO of Wynn Resorts, agreed the most powerful tool the government has is its tax policy. "The priorities of the administration should have been more directly focused on job creation from the day of the inauguration forward. That's the thing that changes America," Wynn said. "If the government had used its power to restrain its tax collection, they would have given everybody who runs small businesses, large businesses, a chance to hire more people," he added. Wynn claimed, "Government has never increased the standard of living of one single human being in civilization's history." Republican...

Bright, eager—and unwanted. While unemployment is ravaging just about every part of the global workforce, the most enduring harm is being done to young people who can't grab onto the first rung of the career ladder. Affected are a range of young people, from high school dropouts, to college grads, newly minted lawyers and MBAs across the developed world from Britain to Japan. One indication: In the U.S., the unemployment rate for 16- to 24-year-olds climbed to more than 18%, from 13% a year ago. For people just starting their careers, the damage may be deep, long-lasting, potentially creating a...

Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve board, said on Sunday that the latest job report showing the nation’s unemployment at 9.8 percent was “pretty awful” and said he expected the figure to climb even higher. “My own suspicion is that we’re going to penetrate the 10 percent barrier and stay there for a while before we start down,” he said in an appearance on “This Week With George Stephanopoulos” on ABC. He said he was particularly concerned about data in the employment report, released Friday, indicating that an increasing number of Americans have been unemployed for more...

Unemployment will almost certainly in double-digits next year — and may remain there for some time. And for every person who shows up as unemployed in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ household survey, you can bet there’s another either too discouraged to look for work or working part time who’d rather have a full-time job or else taking home less pay than before (I’m in the last category, now that the University of California has instituted pay cuts). And there’s yet another person who’s more fearful that he or she will be next to lose a job. In other words,...

Job losses moderated in August, but the unemployment rate ticked up 0.1 percentage point to 9.8%, the highest level since June 1983. But another more comprehensive gauge of unemployment ticked up even more. The government’s broader measure, known as the “U-6"; for its data classification, hit 17% in September, 0.2 percentage points higher than August. The comprehensive measure of labor under-utilization accounts for people who have stopped looking for work or who can’t find full-time jobs. The U-6 figure is the highest since the Labor Department started this particular data series in 1994. But, similar to the headline unemployment rate,...

WASHINGTON – The unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent in September, the highest since June 1983, as employers cut far more jobs than expected. The report shows that the worst recession since the 1930s is still inflicting widespread pain and underscores one of the biggest threats to the nascent economic recovery: that consumers, worried about job losses and stagnant wages, will restrain spending. Consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of the nation's economy. Most analysts expect the economy to continue to improve, but at a slow, uneven pace. Government stimulus efforts, such as the Cash for Clunkers auto rebates,...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. employers cut a deeper-than-expected 263,000 jobs in September, lifting the unemployment rate to 9.8 percent, according to a government report on Friday that fueled fears the weak labor market could undermine recovery from a prolonged recession. The Labor Department said the unemployment rate was the highest since June 1983 and payrolls had now dropped for 21 consecutive months. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected non-farm payrolls to drop 180,000 in September and the unemployment rate to rise to 9.8 percent from 9.7 percent the prior month. The poll was conducted before reports, including regional manufacturing surveys,...

Joe Biden keeps talking about the fabulous improvement on the economy he’s seen from the stimulus, but thus far, those effects have mostly been limited to the White House. Initial jobless claims rose last week to 551,000, 17,000 more than the previous week and 12,000 more than analysts predicted. Americans spent more last month, but that mainly came from the Cash for Clunkers program (h/t Desmond L): First-time claims for jobless benefits increased more than expected last week, a sign employers are reluctant to hire and the job market remains weak. And while consumer spending jumped by the most in...

NEW YORK: Wall Street shares were dragged down on Thursday by an unexpected jump in weekly initial jobless claims that underscored concerns about rising unemployment hindering economic recovery. The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 55.85 points (0.58 per cent) in opening trades to 9,656.43, a day after a roller-coaster session that saw the blue chip gauge ending lower for the second consecutive day. The technology-heavy Nasdaq composite fell 17.90 points (0.84 per cent) to 2,104.52 and the Standard & Poor's 500 index dipped 7.53 points (0.71 per cent) to 1,049.55. The first day of trading in the fourth quarter of...

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The safety net erected in 1935 to protect workers' families and the economy from the harmful effects of unemployment has been shredded, threatening to leave several million people without any income after a year out of work. In the first week of September, 9.5 million Americans were claiming unemployment insurance benefits of some sort, including about 3.7 million people who were receiving extended benefits, which are available only after being jobless for more than six months. In response to the worst recession since the 1930s, the federal government has expanded the length of time that laid-off workers...

LOVEBIRDS Steven and Kathryn share a well-organised home in bustling Las Vegas. They have a neat, if compact kitchen, a furnished living area, and a bedroom complete with double bed, wardrobe and bookshelf featuring a wide selection including a Frank Sinatra biography and Spanish phrase book. And they make their money in some of the biggest casinos in the world. But their life is far from the ordinary. Because, along with hundreds of others, the couple are part of a secret community living in the dark and dirty underground flood tunnels below the famous strip. Rather than working in the...

Nearly every day there's some statistic or factor that's bandied about to demonstrate why our economy continues to struggle. But in all the debates among economists and policymakers over the past few months, one group of people has been stunningly underrepresented -- and it's a group that may actually hold the key to economic recovery: entrepreneurs. The vast majority of new jobs during tough economic times are created by entrepreneurs, and since 1980, all net job growth has come from businesses less than five years old. Entrepreneurs nationwide know firsthand the transformative effect that starting a business can have on...

Unemployment continues to set records in Nevada and Las Vegas, and experts forecast higher joblessness in coming months even as the city's biggest resort begins hiring Monday. Unemployment has spiked nearly a percentage point statewide, jumping from 12.5 percent in July to 13.2 percent in August, the state Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation said Friday. August's statewide unemployment rate was nearly triple the level at the recession's beginning in December 2007, when joblessness clocked in at 5.2 percent. [Snip] Officially, 183,000 Nevadans were out of work and actively hunting for jobs in August. In Las Vegas, 135,100 residents were...

Employers appear to be in no rush to hire back the millions who lost their jobs in the recession, despite signs of improvement in the economy. The U.S. had a record low 2.4 million job openings in July, the Labor Department said Wednesday, the fewest since the department started tracking the figure in 2000, and half the peak of 4.8 million in mid-2007. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve's report on business conditions around the U.S., known as the Beige Book, said "labor market conditions remain weak," a significant hurdle for a strong recovery from the recession that began in December 2007....

WASHINGTON (AFP) – New US jobless claims fell to 550,000 in the past week, the government reported Thursday in a sign of further healing in the critical labor market. The seasonally adjusted number of claims fell by 26,000 in the week to September 5, the Labor Department reported. The figure for weekly claims was better than analyst expectations for 560,000. The four-week moving average, which smooths out week-to-week volatility, was 570,000, a decrease of 2,750 from the previous week's revised figure.

I was born in 1948. When I was a kid, everybody had a mom and a dad, and the dad usually worked at a plant. Some days, friends in school would ask to borrow a dime to buy a snack, and it was often because their dad had been laid off. Then a few months later, the same kid had a new baseball mitt after dad was called back to work. The expectation for dads and kids was that people started a job when they finished school, and there you stayed until retirement, always at age 65. We are well...

How can you tell that we’ve gone from a Republican to Democratic administration? Reading the New York Times provides readers an instructive guide for unemployment coverage. Gone are the snarky references to “McJobs” in a Republican recovery, when unemployment was at 5.4%, or political criticism disguised as pseudointellectual etymology when it was at 5.8%. Now, the NYT highlights the blessings of unemployment when it reaches 9.7%, especially to community organizers-cum-politicians (h/t Geoff A) The work is often mundane: Investment research analysts are now making cold calls to voters, and headhunters are handing out leaflets at subway stations and supermarkets. But...

One of the more discouraging data points for workers in Friday's report was the drop in temporary hiring. While the rate of decline in this data series has slowed when compared to trends from earlier this year, employers are still cutting temporary positions on a net basis. It will be important to watch this data series when it turns positive and to monitor how strongly it does so, because temporary hiring is a reliable leading indicator of nonfarm payrolls.

Massachusetts is experiencing its first wave of jobless workers to exhaust unemployment benefits after nearly two years of rising unemployment, state labor officials said. The state this week sent out letters notifying about 2,500 jobless workers that they had or would soon receive their last unemployment checks, having used up state and federal extensions that provided up to 79 weeks, or about 18 months, of benefits. The state expects about 21,000 jobless workers to run out of unemployment benefits by Thanksgiving. Nationally, about 400,000 jobless workers will exhaust their benefits over the next few months. The depletion of unemployment benefits...

two of five working-age Californians do not have a job, underscoring the challenges in one of the toughest job markets in decades. "The recession has been so severe that California now has approximately the same number of jobs as it did nine years ago, when the state was home to 3.3 million fewer working-age individuals," Jean Ross, executive director of the California Budget Project, recommended Congress adopt a second extension of unemployment insurance benefits. Ross also urged California lawmakers not to make deeper budget cuts that could exacerbate the recession. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration has projected the state will face...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Jobless since January, Donald Money has already moved in with his elderly parents, stopped going to the movies and started using less of his prescription medication so it will last longer. This month, something else will fall by the wayside: Money’s unemployment check. The 43-year-old former printing press operator is among the more than 1.3 million Americans whose unemployment insurance benefits will run out by the end of the year, placing extra strain on an economy that is just starting to recover from the worst downturn in a generation. These are the most unfortunate of America’s 14.5...

The unemployment rate jumped almost half a point to 9.7 percent in August, the highest since 1983, reflecting a poor job market that will make it hard for the economy to begin a sustained recovery. While the jobless rate rose more than expected, the economy shed a net total of 216,000 jobs, less than July's revised 276,000 and the fewest monthly losses in a year, according to Labor Department data released Friday. Economists expected the unemployment rate to rise to 9.5 percent from July's 9.4 percent and job reductions to total 225,000. By contrast, in a healthy economy, employers need...

The pace of U.S. job losses slowed last month, a report released Wednesday showed, but the small improvement suggests a return to job growth could still be many months away. Service-sector employment declined by 146,000 in August while goods-producing jobs including construction and manufacturing fell by 152,000, according to Automatic Data Processing Inc., a payroll firm. The combined loss of 298,000 jobs was an improvement from July's revised drop of 360,000 and was less than half the pace of declines seen earlier this year. Meanwhile, revised figures showed worker productivity was even stronger than initially reported during the spring, growing...

The government says the number of newly laid-off workers filing claims for jobless benefits dropped last week, and those remaining on the rolls also fell, evidence that layoffs have eased. The number of newly laid-off workers filing claims for jobless benefits dropped last week, and the number of people remaining on the rolls also fell, evidence that layoffs have eased. Still, both figures remain above levels associated with a healthy economy, and analysts expect the unemployment rate to keep rising. The Labor Department said Thursday that first-time unemployment claims fell to a seasonally-adjusted 570,000, down from an upwardly revised figure...

The number of jobless households has risen at its fastest rate since Labour came to power with almost five million people now living in homes where no one works. New figures reveal a massive 4.8million people of working age now live in a home where no one holds down a job. The data for April to June this year shows an increase of 500,000 on a year ago before the recession took a crippling grip on Britain. The percentage of households where no adults work is now 16.9 per cent, up 1.1 per cent on 2008, according to the data...

The state's rate jumps to 11.9% in July as the U.S. rate declines to 9.4%. Job losses have an outsize effect on Latinos in the state as work in the construction and hospitality sectors vanishes. California's jobless rate reached a fresh post-World War II high in July, climbing to 11.9%, a sobering reminder that though the nation's deep downturn may be nearing its end, the state's employment woes are far from over. Golden State employers cut their payrolls by 35,800 jobs in July, according to figures released Friday by the state Employment Development Department. That's a significant improvement over monthly...

Jobless spike compounds foreclosure crisis Economists estimate 1.8 million borrowers will lose their homes this year Aug 17, 2009 WASHINGTON - The country's growing unemployment is overtaking subprime mortgages as the main driver of foreclosures, according to bankers and economists, threatening to send even higher the number of borrowers who will lose their homes and making the foreclosure crisis far more complicated to unwind. Economists estimate that 1.8 million borrowers will lose their homes this year, up from 1.4 million last year, according to Moody's Economy.com. And the government, which has already committed billions of dollars to foreclosure-prevention efforts, has...