Friday, June 5, 2009

US Unemployment Hits 9.4%

More...um...good news?  US unemployment has risen to 9.4% but the rate of job losses is slowing considerably.  The unemployment number is a big bigger than what was generally expected, but the number of jobs lost was quite a bit smaller than expected at 345,000 jobs lost.  So what gives?  Once again, the civilian labor force increased by 350,000 over the month and the participation rate increased as well, so there are more people looking for work at the same time jobs are decreasing.

No matter what you think about the state of the economy and what the tea leaves are saying, the employment situation in the US is going to be dismal for a long, long time.

NOTE: Today is the last day to vote on the end of the recession in Oregon.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

There are a lot of liberals right now talking about all the "job creation" going on, and I'm just not seeing it.

I've been trying to find a solution -- some way I can help. It seems like every day someone new doesn't have a job (once in a while it's a close friend, but more often it's just someone I meet at the grocery store or chitchatting in line for a sandwich or something).

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce seems like they've done great work to actually help workers (and small business owners, for that matter). They've been assessing our country's strengths and weaknesses and outlining the public policies we must pursue to succeed in the world economy. I was glad I could help take action on their web site (here) with several petitions focusing on the economy and labor reform.