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Unemployment at lowest rate since March 2009, thanks to small businesses

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by LongTimeListener, Dec 2, 2011.

  1. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/markets/hiring-probably-improved-in-november-but-european-debt-crisis-threatens-future/2011/12/02/gIQARYp8IO_story.html?tid=pm_business_pop

    Unemployment drops to 8.6 percent, the lowest rate since just after Obama took office. Main credit for the improvement goes to small businesses and startups.

    The National Federation of Independent Business, a small business group, said Friday that its own survey of small companies shows that more of them are planning to add workers than at any time since September 2008, when the financial crisis struck.

    Perhaps we can dispense with the idea that over-regulation, over-taxation and Obamacare are killing small business. Perhaps not, but a fella can dream.
     
  2. BrianGriffin

    BrianGriffin Active Member

    Those figures are better than what was anticipated and will be cause for over-celebration by some and will be roundly dismissed as manipulated propaganda by others.

    And by typing that, I may have prevented several such posts before they are posted.
     
  3. RickStain

    RickStain Well-Known Member

    Until we have a control economy where we can test how much growth their might have been otherwise, no, we can't dispense with such an idea.
     
  4. poindexter

    poindexter Well-Known Member

    I'm not into the red-blue crap that so many here jack off to, but to temper those numbers, 315,000 of those are discouraged workers who gave up looking.

    http://american99ersunion.com/2011/12/02/unemployment-rate-falls-to-8-6-in-november/

    Not that I have any faith that someone in the government can accurately asses - TWO DAYS LATER - how many people actually gave up looking in November.
     
  5. vicd

    vicd Active Member

    You crazy dreamer you.
     
  6. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    I saw an article a couple weeks ago in a major U.S. newspaper about a study that concluded that regulation as it exists today has an almost insignificant effect on unemployment. As in like 0.3 percent of that 8.6 perfect is due to "over-regulation." I know I remember 0.3 percent as part of the study.
     
  7. Michael_ Gee

    Michael_ Gee Well-Known Member

    The upward revisions to the figures in this report for October and November indicate that unemployment numbers, like most economic indicators, are written in pencil. Also, people do not drop out of the work force just because they're discouraged. Some reach retirement age, early or otherwise. As us Boomers continue to age (at least, I hope I do), it's to be expected more will leave the workforce.
     
  8. BrianGriffin

    BrianGriffin Active Member

    According to the OP's link, the number of "underemployed" workers, which includes those who stop looking for jobs, also dropped. Don't know the methodology.
     
  9. poindexter

    poindexter Well-Known Member

    From the WP article.
    The country added 120,000 jobs in November, the Labor Department said Friday. The economy has generated 100,000 or more jobs five months in a row — the first time that has happened since April 2006, well before the Great Recession.

    If the country adds 100,000 jobs per month, it will take until December 2016 to get back the 9 million jobs that were lost during the downturn that ended in 2009. * **

    *That isn't a jab at Obama
    ** That is, if you believe any of these government-concocted numbers.
     
  10. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    That jibes with global predictions of a doldrums that could last five or 10 years, not just in the U.S. but worldwide.
     
  11. BrianGriffin

    BrianGriffin Active Member

    Well, for one the market for construction was proven to be artificial, so you can't get all those jobs back without manufacturing demand.

    Then comes the whole issue of repurposing what's basically unskilled labor at a time where a lot of unskilled jobs have been outsourced. These are folks that in the past were repurposed to construction from manufacturing. Well, they can't go back to manufacturing, can they?
     
  12. Bob Cook

    Bob Cook Active Member

    The report says construction jobs have stayed flat since 2010. What popped for me was that last year retail shed 16,000 in November, but this year added 50,000. I guess someone is expecting a Merry Christmas.

    Also, the biggest drag on employment right now is government jobs, which have been shed for the last two years. Leaving aside the debate on whether in the long run this is a good thing, in the short term they still count as unemployed people who no longer can support the economy as they once did.
     
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