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Impeach George Bush
The Employment Game
Depending on who you believe, the Jobs Outlook in the US is greatly improving or still dismal. Reports conflict, Government, Newspapers, but the numbers don’t lie and are easy to interpret.
Source: the TIP, 2004-06-04
Candidate: Big Business
According to the AP report, “Jobs Growth Unexpectedly Strong in May, Up 248,000.” Well, that’s cheery. So, why the gloom?
Reuters reported First-time claims for state jobless benefits slipped 6,000 to 339,000 in the week ended May 29, the Labor Department said. The number of initial claims was only slightly above the expected 336,000.
Well, you do the math: 339 thousand new jobless, 248 thousand new jobs...that’s a net loss of 91 thousand jobs last month. In addition, 140 thousand new workers enter the workforce each month swelling the number of jobless just last month by 231 thousand.
Ah, that would explain the gloom.
It is also interesting to note that 22 percent of the 3 million jobless have been unemployed for 27 weeks or more. That’s more than six months. And that means they are not only without unemployment benefits, but they are not longer counted as unemployed which skew the numbers even more.
Congress has had before it a bill to extend unemployment benefits beyond six months for two years. But Congress has refused to vote on it. Why? Surely not because Congress has no pity on the unemployed. But because the Republican led congress doesn’t want to include the long-term unemployed in the government unemployment statistics (it makes the President look bad).
So, given the choice of the fact that Americans are suffering without jobs and unemployment or the appearance of an improving job market, congress chooses the appearance over the facts.
It is also important to look at what kind of jobs are being created, and what kind of jobs are being lost.
Seasonal employment, such as construction and jobs linked to the summer tourism season are up. Construction employment rose by 32,000 in May, with 91,000 new jobs added since January. Hotels and restaurants added 33,000 jobs over the month. Professional and business services added 64,000 new jobs, fueled by hiring increases in temporary employment firms. Hiring at such firms has grown by 14 percent since April 2003. And it is worth noting that such jobs, seasonal, hotels and restaurant, temporary, only rarely come with job benefits such as overtime, sick leave, vacation or health benefits.
Financial services also boosted payrolls by 15,000.
But some industries lost jobs, including telecommunications, which shed 5,000 positions last month. Also, there were fewer government jobs last month, as employment in that sector decreased by 27,000.
While the pace of layoffs appears to have stabilized at a relatively low level, the report offered a sign that jobless workers were still facing some difficulties finding new jobs. The number of unemployed who continued to claim benefits after an initial week of aid climbed 65,000 to 3.00 million.
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User Originated Comments:
From: Unelect Him
2004-06-06 11:38:36
your numbers are flawed; that 339,000 number is
the amount of weekly unemployment claims...not
monthly.
the 248,000 is the number of monthly
jobs created
also in may the amount of
people entering the workforce is much more than
usual if you account for college grads entering
the job market
From: Robbie
2004-06-06 05:49:47
the real question is "why is the ap helping george
bush this way?"
From: bushwacked
2004-06-06 02:19:00
offhand, i can think of someone in particular that
should lose his job this coming november...
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