http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2009/08/07/2022867.aspx http://money.cnn.com/2009/08/07/news/economy/jobs_july/index.htm?postversion=2009080708
I posted this on another thread: The govt is screwing the numbers. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm total employment went down by -155,000. number unemployed went down by -267,000. Total number leaving the workforce was 637,000. Unemployment didn't go down because of hiring, but it went down because people are leaving the workforce. If you look at the u5: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t12.htm It went from 10.9% to 11%. I think the u5 and u6 are more reflective of the unemployment situation.
U5 and u6 are definitely more reflective of unemployment numbers regardless of which party is running the show. The unemployment rate is a cooked number that does not include people that have just given up looking, because they haven't been able to find a job in so long. People that say were making 70k a year job, but could not find anything so had to take a 25k a year job. It also does not include people who have had their hours forcefully cut like the thousands of state workers in California who had their hours reduced drastically.
Eventually, there will be an uptick of jobs and then another realignment of the goal posts will begin. Like, hey, "the dow is SO important", but now that it's up to 9k and trending up, it seems certain people have neglected to mention it.
Seasonally adjusted, those numbers went down from June to July so there is some reason for optimism. Everyone knows that its going to take a few years to really recover from the job losses but it is also nice to know that job losses are slowly decreasing.
