patrick.net

So we are supposed to believe that 1.85 million new jobs are being created every month thereby leaving only 250,000 of those 2.2 million new claimants each month without work?
Where are these new jobs?
Why isn't the White House taking credit for creating so many new jobs?
Not one person I know who has gone on unemployment in the past six months has gotten a new job
so I don't think all those new claimants are getting rehired in significant numbers.
It's possible that large numbers of "new claims" are being denied.
They also don't count pay reductions of people are still working the same hours for less money which obviously is a big factor in consumer spending.

Today's new claims for "standard" unemployment show a "drop" of 10,000 but the number of new people moving onto "extended" unemployment benefits is 102,500 so the supposed drop in claims does not indicate anybody is actually getting hired.
We are also hearing that 435 banks are expected to go under in the next few months because of
commercial real estate defaults.
I wish somebody would explain how unemployment is going to go down if all these banks collapse and all the commercial properties get foreclosed throwing millions of people out of work.
What businesses are going to be in a position to hire in this collapsing commercial environment?
With all these continuing job losses who is going to buy houses and keep bidding up the prices?
We keep hearing a lot of optimistic generalities but no specifics on where these jobs are supposed to come from.

When they admit to 11.9 percent they are really talking about 20 percent unemployment or more since so many people are simply excluded from the calculation for mysterious reasons.
Any way you look at it a big segment of the potential buyers are not going to be able to qualify for loans
at all because they will have a big gap in their employment history.
By the way doesn't Europe have a lot more "green jobs" than the US?
If so than how come Europe has so much unemployment?
Aren't the "green jobs" supposed to replace all the that have been lost in the past year and save the economy?

As of September 4, 2009 U3 is up to 9.7 percent and U6 is up to 16.8 percent. Even the "underemployed" will not be able to get mortgages again for several years because they need a history of earning a qualifying amount
on a continuous basis to even apply. That history now has abig hole in it and many will never
again earn tha kind of money they once did.

Remember that many people apply for unemployment but are denied - they may have been fired (with or without cause) but can't find another job, or independent contractors such as medical transcriptionists, sales people, construction workers...

None of these people are considered when reporting official numbers.

I wish I could keep my personal accounts that way. It'd be so cool to invent more resources for money (therefore potential assets). I'd also make the national color pink and decree that pigs can fly.

Excellent article on this issue:

http://www.truthout.org/090609V

There are two different components of Unemployment based upon different surveys: 1. Household survey of people looking for a job in the last month to determine the unemployment rate (9.7%). 2. Survey of employers/employees to determine jobs created and jobs lost, along with the birth/death model for businesses created or closed to determine the net jobs created or lost (215,000 last month). There is another BLS survey of jobs created or lost that is also reported and they often do not match (the 215,000#) but they try to reconcile them periodically. The birth/death model generally understates net jobs lost during a decline and the oposite during strong growth.

Unemployment claims are the most current data and is based more upon hard data (not surveys). They do some seasonal adjustments to the data so it is not hard computer data alone. The markets pay a lot of attention to this # because we are looking for any sign of real improvement in the labor market.

The Automatic Data Processing # (ADP) is released once a month based upon their records of actual employment changes on payroll for private employers that they process but they also do some adjustments to that data in an attempt to estimate the monthly jobs lost or gained for the month in the private sector.

There are several things that are different this time that are also of great importance to the health of the job market. Hours worked (33.1) are the lowest since they have accumulated the stat. Income growth is weak. The part time component is very weak. The U6#--- those working part time that want to work full time and those that are not looking for work because they are discouraged has risen to 16.8%. That is a record #.

This may not be 100% correct but it is the basic outline.

Since a 40 hour week has been the standrd for "full time employment" a 33.1 hour work week
equal a loss of about 17.5 percent of all jobs in the country and that's not counting the 16.8 percent of
people who are officially "unemployed or underderemployed".
So we really have a situation where about 33 percent of the US workforce is not working or has such a large reduction of income that they will not be able to obtain credit for large purchases for the foreseeable future which makes a "consumer driven" recovery impossible for an indefinite time.

Not one person I know who has gone on unemployment in the past six months has gotten a new job.

Last person we laid off, which was in September 2008, started a new job 3 weeks ago. Never ran out of unemployment, since it got extended.

Here's the deal. My friend is running out of unemployment support from the government. He got a $365k house mortgage to pay, health insurance, food, fuel, electricity, water etc..

His nearby REO is selling for $280k and no one is interested. Here's my point: We haven't seen the worst of housing bubble yet. More REQ and foreclosures in the pipeline in 2009, 2010 & 2011.

Trust me. Unemployment will force some people to short sale, foreclosure even more. They are simply running out of options.

Now California officially has 12.2 percent unemployment and none of the state and local city workers
have even been laid off yet even though the drastic cutbacks have been predicted for months.
This has got to reduce all consumer spending for a long time to come and eventually will drag down all
housing prices just because very few will be able to qualify for a mortgage.
Even investors will have problems because they have been buying rental properties in areas with
rapidly increasing unemployment and no prospect of new jobs in the foreseeable future.
Who will want to rent there?

And don't anybody get the wise idea of working for less than enough to make a living. In CA, don't do sh## for less than 120K a year.

Yes I agree jobless rate is higher.

You can better follow total over all unemployment using the U-6 numbers, currently marked at 16%

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment#United_States_Bureau_of_Labor_Statistics

United States Bureau of Labor Statistics

The Bureau of Labor Statistics measures employment and unemployment (of those over 15 years of age) using two different labor force surveys[32] conducted by the United States Census Bureau (within the United States Department of Commerce) and/or the Bureau of Labor Statistics (within the United States Department of Labor) that gather employment statistics monthly. The Current Population Survey (CPS), or "Household Survey", conducts a survey based on a sample of 60,000 households. This Survey measures the unemployment rate based on the ILO definition.[33] The data are also used to calculate 5 alternate measures of unemployment as a percentage of the labor force based on different definitions noted as U1 through U6:[34]

U1: Percentage of labor force unemployed 15 weeks or longer.
U2: Percentage of labor force who lost jobs or completed temporary work.
U3: Official unemployment rate per ILO definition.
U4: U3 + "discouraged workers", or those who have stopped looking for work because current economic conditions make them believe that no work is available for them.
U5: U4 + other "marginally attached workers", or "loosely attached workers", or those who "would like" and are able to work, but have not looked for work recently.
U6: U5 + Part time workers who want to work full time, but cannot due to economic reasons.

I just want to say:
If you don't need people to work, don't give them sh## for being unemployed.
I don't see any new wave of hiring... No green jobs, no nothing...
so just send us a weekly check to buy our basic necessities.
Unless you want to pay me big bucks for my skills, shouldn't I just chill out and wait?
Like ferr sherr, right?
And unemployment is going to go like 120% from what I've heard... just some in the know sources I keep confidential.

The September unemployment number is now up to 9.8 percent and U6 up to 17 percent.
No sign of any new jobs created by the "stimulus" package. In fact governement layoffs have increased.
The fact that 500,000 more workers have stopped looking for work shows that there is no real prospect of
even part-time employment on the horizon and no real world "recovery" at all.
GM recently hired back 1400 workers but is now going to close down Saturn that will put 13,000 people out of work so the
"improvement" in the auto industry didn't last long.

Today the weekly new unemployment claims have "leveled off" at a mere 505,000.
They fail to report that the emergency extended claims recipients have increased to about
4,000,000 and these extension programs all end on January 1, 2010 unless congress
votes to change the end date, which it strangely did not do when it supposedly "extended"
the benefits for 20 more weeks.
It is looking like a lot of stuff will be hitting the fan in first weeks of 2010.

If the government wants to maintain civil control, it will extend unemployment benefits. Nothing creates angry mobs that want blood like millions of unwashed, unhoused, and hungry people.

It's interesting that the government keeps claiming it can't keep accurate records of the
650,000 jobs supposedly created or saved by the "stimulus package" but we are to believe that
the weekly and monthly statistics on 100 million or so workers throughout the country are miraculously correct.
We already have millions of homeless and unemployed people and the food banks are runniing out
of supplies all over the country yet nobody seems to be creating any angry mobs yet.
Also millions are not even getting unemployment so they can be expected to make some noise eventually.

Shadowstats chart is scary stuff:

Vicente says

Shadowstats chart is scary stuff:

Indeed. most of the time sgs is close to practical, that means atleast 20% unemployed and the rate at which its increasing is alarming.

Well today we have a surprise "drop" in unemployment from 10.2 percent to an even 10 percent.
But the reporting does not mention that almost 300,000 people were extracted from the "civilian workforce" numbers which automatically reduces the percentage of unemployed by about .2 percent even with no new jobs.
I also notice that the average work week is still only 33.2 hours so we have a long way to go before most employers will need more full time workers.
In fact the number of part time and temporary workers is continuing to increase so there is still resistance to hiring full time.

Here in California we don't get the current state unemployment numbers until December 18.
Since I am only interested in buying property here I think those numbers will be mroe sigificant
that the national numbers wheich are much lower.
As far as the idea that employers are "about to start hiring" I notice that I and my co-workers who have taken significant pay cuts have not yet gotten back any of that reduction and have been told we won't for the foreseeable future. So how can employers go out and start hiring more people until they restore full pay and hours to their current full time employees???

Also notice the spike in unemployed that fell off the state unemployment and into the federal extension and no longer being counted. Not much coverage on this.

http://www.zerohedge.com/article/untold-story-emergency-unemployment-compensation-surge-265k-one-week

So last week we were told that only 11,000 jobs had been lost in all of November.
Now this week we have an increase of 17,000 applications for unemployment in a single week.
Total applications are still close to 500,000 per week but only 2750 jobs are being lost per week?
Those numbers make no sense at all.
Last month ADP said that 169,000 jobs had been lost not 11,000.
ADP does payroll for 600,000 businesses and has real data to work with.
The BLS just does a "survey" without having actual payroll records and only surveys about 150,000
businesses, far less than the number in the ADP database.
I would think anyone who values factual data would put miore faith in the ADP numbers than in the
BLS numbers.

pinnacle says

I would think anyone who values factual data would put miore faith in the ADP numbers than in the
BLS numbers

Amen! May be we should hire more people to BLS. Speaking of that,

http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/6581475/

census job creation: 1.5 mil

Now Obama will take credit for 1.5 million short term jobs as if he "created them" even though they would have been hired anyway.
I guess that's why they stalled on spending the stimulus money so they could get a bump up in jobs for the election year, all of which will go away after the census.

pinnacle says

Now Obama will take credit for 1.5 million short term jobs as if he “created them” even though they would have been hired anyway.

I guess that’s why they stalled on spending the stimulus money so they could get a bump up in jobs for the election year, all of which will go away after the census.

May be that's why he is skipping lunch with King, concerts and conferences in Norway so that he can rush home and take credit for those jobs because he doesn't deserve that prize after deciding to send more troops to Afghanistan. Wait until he can't fulfil his Iraq troop withdrawal promise. I feel for the families and our troops.

In addition to the still bad unemployment numbers I notice that the treasury finally admitted that the "foreclosure prevention program" has only resulted in 31,000 permanent mortgage modifications out of 700,000 trial modifications.
Not much help for a 75 billion dollar program. Thats about 2,350,000 dollars for each permanent modification.

Today's numbers show even more applications for unemployment and about 150,000
more being added to the "extended" unemployment programs.
How many years can we extend unemployment before workers become totally unemployable?
We keep hearing about "education and job training" as being critical to our future economy yet we let millions of people sit around doing nothing for years on end and make no effort to provide any
new job skills and expect these people to be hired by employers who will be in a position to pick and choose only the most highly skilled and experienced workers.
A friend of mine has been out of work for two years and in that time I have been required to learn
several new types of software and work with multiple new digital systems.
Who is an employer going to hire, the guy who has been working been working with the latest techonology or the guy who has been sidelined on long term unemployment doing nothing for two years?

permanent_marker says

All I know is, stock market, which surged ahead based on some inflated earnings, now coming to face with,

- unemployment numbers

- low consumer confidence
(aka the ‘real’ economy indicators)

That's called a bubble my friend. :)

Today the California unemployment numbers for November finally came out.
They say we have a "decrease" to "only" 12.3 percent unemployment statewide.
But this decrease is only possible because 48,000 people have been extracted from the
civilian workforce numbers because they have simply given up looking for jobs altogether.
In reality there was a loss of another 21,000 jobs in California in November even though the
federal unemployment statistics claim a loss only 11,000 jobs in the entire country in November.

There are countless more unemployed that aren't counted.... EDD hasn't even had the decency to call my finance for a phone interview concerning her unemployment. She can't get through to them because the phone lines are jammed up all day... And they don't respond to emails. She's been unemployed for over a month now and she filed in early November.

They are claiming a drop in the unemployment numbers, because they are keeping people in limbo.

It's kind of like the banks who don't list the foreclosed houses as being for sale. We now have a limbo economy on all levels.
Today more good news, officially 85,000 jobs lost when many people were predicting a gain
of 8,000 to 10,000 for December.
Of course the real number of jobs lost in December is 589,000 but don't expect that number to be reported anywhere.

The BLS makes so many bad assumptions that it's not worth the time to try to figure it out. Instead, I think a better use of one's time is to safeguard one's assets from all the govt spending. In my opinion the U.S. dollar is in a lot of trouble in the long run because the Fed is now caught in a position where it cannot withdraw the stimulus or stop the money printing because it would devastate the economy. So one of the few ways for people to protect themselves from this fiat currency debasement is to continue to add to gold positions on pullbacks. And I recently came across an article titled "Canadian Gold Stocks Rally as Gold Price Opens 2010 Higher" at http://www.goldalert.com/ which discusses the outlook for a bunch of gold-related sectors, including several gold mining companies based in Canada that have benefited and should continue to benefit from the bull market in gold.

In the last 3 months we've fired 2 techs and hired two techs. The two techs we fired were making more than $20/hr. The two new hired techs are making less than $15/hr. This isn't the kind of thing that gets reported.

Keep saving money...
Keep saving money...

Wait for it... Wait for it...

Keep saving money...

If the government doesn't stop meddling with the free markets, I'll end up being a landless Millionare.

But one thing for sure, none of the rosy doctored up economic numbers are from one red cent of mine.

knewbetter says

In the last 3 months we’ve fired 2 techs and hired two techs. The two techs we fired were making more than $20/hr. The two new hired techs are making less than $15/hr. This isn’t the kind of thing that gets reported.

No, but when they report that tax reciepts are down it shows up there (and probably no place else).

Of course the average work hours are also stagnant at 33.2 so there is not much need to hire
additional "full time" workers.
Nobody I know of has yet heard that their reduced pay and reduced hours are going to be restored any time soon so that also indicates no sign of this big "recovery" we keep hearing about.
If work hours go down below 30 everyone would be considered part-time and the U6
labor underutilization number would be 100 percent.
Only 3.2 hours a week keeps this from officially being worse than the great depression
yet we still keep getting stupid happy talk about recovery.
Soom we'll get the baloney about how short term census jobs have "jump started" the economy.
Today we also heard that 5 billion dollars will be wasted to train "renewable energy" workers.
The only "renewable energy" jobs in California that I can find are for the trainers who of course will make all kinds of money from government contracts, but almost no existing businesses are offering actual clean energy jobs.
I found just eight solar panel installer jobs in the whole state and one wind generator mechanic job
and a few engineering jobs requiring college degrees not a six week training course.
This is just like how all the "new economy" internet jobs were supposed to make us all rich ten years ago. Back then my idiot congressman David Dreier said selling our old junk on Ebay would pay all our bills better than a real job would.
Look how well that turned out.