Friday, September 2, 2011

US Unemployment Holds at 9.1%

The BLS's August unemployment report is out today and the report makes for some sobering reading.   I am going to quote from the report as it is remarkable:

Nonfarm payroll employment was unchanged (0) in August, and the unemployment
rate held at 9.1 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.
Employment in most major industries changed little over the month. Health
care continued to add jobs, and a decline in information employment reflected
a strike. Government employment continued to trend down, despite the return
of workers from a partial government shutdown in Minnesota.

Yes, that is a zero. No new jobs. None. Zilch. This means of course that we are losing ground as we need more than 100,000 a month just to keep up with population growth.  And we are worrying about the deficit right now.  Sigh...

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Without the Verizon strike wouldn't we have seen a 45,000 net gain?

Sure that isn't great but i think that is the more realistic number to use. Zero makes a hell of a headline and also does highlight the serious job issue we have but i don't think it is accurate.

Jobs needs to be priority one in this country. We are already seeing are unemployment problem go from cyclical to structural. The longer we don't do a large scale jobs program the more longterm damage this recession is going to cause.