Jobless rate slips, payrolls still weak Unemployment at 5.7%, but just 1,000 jobs added The Associated Press Updated: 11:36 a.m. ET Jan. 09, 2004 WASHINGTON - The nation’s unemployment rate dropped to 5.7 percent in December to the lowest level in 14 months, but employers finished the year without many help wanted signs for the holidays, adding just 1,000 new jobs. The 0.2 percentage point drop in the jobless rate occurred because fewer people were looking for work, the Labor Department said Friday. More than 300,000 people gave up their search for jobs and dropped out of the pool of available workers. “The rate is going down, but it is going down for the wrong reasons,” said Bill Cheney, chief economist at John Hancock Financial Services, noting that it fell not because people were finding work. “That doesn’t make you feel really good about the state of the jobs market.” Weak holiday hiring by retailers was to blame for holding back job gains. Analysts were surprised by the anemic job growth because they expecting companies to add 100,000 to 150,000 jobs to their payrolls last month. But the net gain was just 1,000 jobs — which is “quite shocking,” Cheney said. “I would certainly have not expected anything resembling that.” Employment in the nation’s stores, malls and even gas stations dropped by 38,000, the report said, and manufacturing continued a 41-month slide by losing 26,000 jobs. The nation’s factories have been on life support, and the sector shed about a half million jobs in 2003. The economy has lost about 2.3 million jobs since President Bush took office, a statistic that Democrats hope to use against Bush as he seeks re-election. “Rather than focusing on putting a person on the moon, I think the Bush administration should focus on putting people back to work,” said Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., a former Clinton White House aide, citing Bush’s planned announcement next week of goals of sending Americans to Mars and establishing a permanent human presence on the moon. The Bush administration contends that stronger economic growth — helped by the president’s three tax cuts — will eventually lead to more meaningful job creation on a sustained basis. “The pace of December job growth reinforces the need to pass all the elements of the president’s plan for job creation,” said Commerce Secretary Don Evans. “President Bush won’t be satisfied until every American seeking work finds a job. Congress should make tax relief permanent and act with urgency on the rest of President Bush’s jobs and growth agenda.” For that sustained growth, analysts are looking for monthly payroll gains of 200,000 to 300,000 — a mark the economy is far from reaching. December marked the fifth consecutive month of payroll gains, however slight. Other areas of the economy are surging, but the jobs market has been a weak link in the recovery. To remain competitive in the global economy and out of concern that economic improvements wouldn’t last, companies have been hesitant to take on added costs of hiring new full-time workers. Instead, they have been working their employees longer and harder. Hence, the productivity of American workers has been at high levels in recent months. But with all the positive signs in the rest of the economy, economists have been expecting the jobs market to improve. “Most people were expecting it to be a reality by this stage, so it’s a little alarming we’re still relying on faith,” Cheney said. Friday’s report showed that employers have added just 277,000 new jobs since July, cutting earlier estimates of growth in October and November. Some areas of the economy added jobs last month. Employment continued to rise in the services sector in temporary employment services, education and health care. Construction companies also added to their payrolls. But the cuts outweighed any gains. Analysts were concerned about the lack of employment growth for retailers in their most important month of the year. A rise in Internet shopping could partially explain why fewer stores were hiring, economists said. The federal and state governments also reduced their payrolls last month, as did banks and mortgage companies, reflecting the uptick in mortgage interest rates. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3916152/ how long are we supposed to wait for jobs to be created by the three tax-cuts ?? Bush and his supportors all promised that his tax-cuts would create jobs.........when exactly is that going to happen? So far all we have gained from the tax cuts is a huge deficit, it has not done a whole lot for the job market.
More than 300,000 people gave up their search for jobs and dropped out of the pool of available workers. Isn't this a funny way of saying that 300,000 people used up all of their unemployment insurance and no longer quality to receive payments???
Worse, the *true* unemployment rate is 9.7%, when you take into count those who just gave up looking, and those who take on part-time jobs because they can't find full-time work. That's 15.1 million American adults who can't find regular work. Somebody must have forgotten to tell them about "lagging indicators" and the jobless recovery.
248,000 jobs were added on average per month during Clinton's 8 years in office. Bush's tax cuts have gained just 277,000 in the past 5 months total!
" White House press release dated April 24, 2003 was very specific about the additional jobs the president expects his tax cuts to create: President Bush traveled to Ohio to discuss the benefits of his jobs and growth plan with local small business owners and workers at the Timken Company in Canton....The president is working to grow the economy and create the largest number of new jobs possible for America’s workers. He has proposed a jobs and economic growth plan that would help create 510,000 new jobs this year and a total of 1.4 million new jobs by the end of next year. The president will not be satisfied until everyone looking for work can find it."" http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm?id=1425
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-010904jobs_lat,1,6147677.story?coll=la-home-headlines . . . Not only did the Labor Department say the economy produced almost no new jobs in December, but it trimmed its earlier estimates of job growth for October and November by 51,000. And it said the U.S. manufacturing sector, which many people had hoped would add jobs for the first time in nearly 3 1/2 years, extended its losing streak last month by shedding an additional 26,000 workers . . . Nevertheless, it appears that something more fundamental than counting errors is at work in the jobs market. With the release of the December figures, there is employment data for all of 2003, and it shows that U.S. payrolls declined by 331,000 last year after falling 1.5 million the year before. The last time payrolls fell two years in a row was in 1944-45. Even seemingly encouraging numbers in the December report appeared suspect because of the shrinkage of the labor force. For example, the Labor Department reported a decline in the unemployment rates for whites, blacks and Hispanics. But except in the case of Hispanics, the entire decline can be explained by labor force exodus, a sign that people who lost jobs have become so discouraged they have given up looking for work.
I love that old practice of getting journalists on the govt payroll to put out a misleading story about the strength of the economy---or, at least, that the jobs market isn't so bad. You hit the airwaves/print with this story on a, oh, let's say on a Tuesday. The people who have jobs or who don't need them repeat the "fact" ad nauseaum, that is, the lie gets repeated. Then on a later date, preferably on or near the weekend, you come out and say, "My bad." But only about half as many people are paying attention on the weekend.
More tax cuts??? I guess if the only thing you have is a hammer, then everything starts looking like a nail.
These #s are skewed. Unemployment #s are derived from those eligible to get unemployment $$. These #s dont include all the people who graduated from colleges that do not have jobs yet.
Anecdotal, but interesting http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A21204-2004Jan15.html Recovery Trickles Down Very Slowly Finances Improve for People Who Already Have Jobs and Money By Jonathan Weisman Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, January 16, 2004; Page A01 CANTON, Ohio -- Cathy Wyatt is putting the finishing touches on her trendy coffee shop, Carpe Diem, opened just eight weeks ago. She is paying meticulous attention to her upscale clientele, complete with offering hard-boiled eggs marked for the Atkins-conscious crowd. It may not fit with northeastern Ohio's hardscrabble image, but, she said, industrial Canton's old downtown is in a bit of a renaissance. "It's nothing for people to spend three and six dollars a day on their coffee," Wyatt said. Just around the corner, however, the Stark County Department of Job and Family Services waiting room is standing room only. In the lobby, escaping the cold snowfall outside, a forlorn Monique Simmons, 21, waited for her ride, baby asleep at her feet. "I've been looking for a job for two years," she said, recounting her last work at a local telemarketing firm, a job she left and now can't get back. "It's always, 'We'll get back to you.' I just hear a lot of excuses." The contrast between the pulse Canton's economy is starting to feel on the high end and the stagnation painfully evident in the lower tiers points out a significant national trend: After three years of fits and starts, the economy is revving back to life, but at least so far, its fruits have gone mainly to those who least need them. "If you have investments already, and if you have a job already, the last 12 to 18 months have been very nice to you," said Gary Burtless, a labor economist at the Brookings Institution. "The stock market has done well. You can refinance your mortgage. You can finance your new cars at very favorable rates, and prices haven't been rising. "But if you are looking for a new job or had the misfortune of losing a job, for those folks, life is much, much tougher. It's just so damned hard to get employment." . . .
Wow THATS surprising .... Let's see, Clinton was given a booming economy from day 1, and by year 7 he had run it into a recession, which GWB has had the fortune of inheriting for his term. REAL good comparison there
Please do not revise history. The recession started after GWB took office, though he claims otherwise. Not a surprise there.
Wow THATS surprising .... Let's see, Clinton was given a booming economy from day 1, and by year 7 he had run it into a recession, which GWB has had the fortune of inheriting for his term. 1999 was a recession? What bizarro world are you living in?
Not to mention the official recession dates were March 2001-November 2001. That is two months after GW went into office so don't even try to say that the economy was in good shape when Bush took office.
It is good to see that you are using the correct dates for the recession While the economy was not in good shape, it was not in recession. Do you happen to remember what GWB did just after he took office? He started pushing for his first set of tax cuts. When lawmakers asked for his rationale, GWB stated the economy was on the verge of recession and needed the lift. In effect, GWB bad mouthed the economy on a daily basis until he got his tax cuts through. Is it a coincidence that the economy went into recession shortly after GWB bad mouthed the economy? Is the kind of "leadership" we expect from a President?
