The October Employment Situation Report (110609)
See this post for the run-up to the report.
The unemployment rate rose from 9.8 to 10.2 percent in October, and nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline (-190,000), the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The largest job losses over the month were in construction, manufacturing, and retail trade.
Double-digit unemployment arrives.
My 2008 campaign name for President Obama, Mr. BOOHOO-OUCH (Barack O-bomba Overseas Hussein “Obambi“ Obama – Objectively Unfit Coddler of Haters), has acquired a whole new meaning. I’ll have to work on redoing the acronym’s underlying words to fit the circumstances.
More later.
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UPDATE: The Associated Press’s Chris Rugaber did some homework:
The Labor Department said Friday that the economy shed a net total of 190,000 jobs in October, less than the downwardly revised 219,000 lost in September. August job losses were also revised lower, to 154,000 from 201,000.
But the loss of jobs last month exceeded economists’ estimates. It’s the 22nd straight month the U.S. economy has shed jobs, the longest on records dating back 70 years.
Yikes, and nice job on the advance research.
Interesting that you are quoting the household data for the 190k loss figure but not the establishment data which the unemployment rate is based at 589k loss. Why?
The real seasonally adjusted unemployment # stands thus:
15,700,000 unemployed 1 year
———-
21,695,000 total unemployed
14% actual unemployment
In a short lived normal recession, the current definitions of unemployment wouldn’t mask the extent of the economic slow down. However, since the recession is now definitely over a year old, each passing month masks a greater number of people unemployed as job creation doesn’t occur.
Comment by dscott — November 6, 2009 @ 9:40 am
B-b-b-b-but…the economy’s great thanks to TARP, bailouts, stimulus package, government takeovers, 1.6M created and saved jobs, impending health reform, cap-and-tax, and a global climate treaty! These obviously are just mistakes of a lagging indicator masking the robustness of the POR economy. Certainly they’ll be revised up by 3 million or so next month. I’m surprised at you TB, falling for this obvious Karl Rovian manipulation of data.
Comment by Joe C. — November 6, 2009 @ 12:21 pm
#1, other obligations prevented a closer look for a while.
Having looked closer, your point is well-taken, esp because the A employment has dropped by 1.374 million in the past two months, and 1.766 million in the past three. That’s a difference of over 1.2 million jobs lost in 3 months vs. the B data.
That tells me that the birth/death B estimates BLS is making are going to turn out to have been wildly optimistic, as will the general results when the next comprehensive revision is done.
Beyond that, all of the seasonally adjusted B losses were in the private sector. In the past three months, while total SA-B losses have been 553,000, government’s portion has been only 28,000, Govt. SA jobs are down less than 100K in the past 12 months, vs. 5.4 million in the private sector.
Comment by TBlumer — November 6, 2009 @ 2:05 pm
#3, Hahahahah, wait a minute you said the number of government jobs El Presidente Obama was going to create or save jobs through government hiring… How many billions in stimulus and we’re down 100,000 government jobs?????? Talk about incompetence even for a liberal, Obama can’t even hire bureaucrats with billions in borrowing!!!!
Comment by dscott — November 6, 2009 @ 4:50 pm
#4, I see the humor but the government reduction is less than 2% of the private sector’s haircut, and could easily have been accomplished overwhelmingly thorugh hiring freezes and not actually having to fire many people. Considering what the private sector has had to endure, that part’s not funny.
Comment by TBlumer — November 6, 2009 @ 5:48 pm