Earlier today, I wrote about the July unempoyment report that showed creation of over 100,000 jobs and a decline in the unemployment rate from 9.2 to 9.1 percent. I have now had a chance to really look closely at the report of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and have to say that the report is not all that good.
First, according to BLS, the number or people with jobs in the USA in July is 38,000 fewer than in June. That seems strange, right? The very same report from BLS says 117,000 net jobs were created, but 38,000 fewer folks have jobs. Amazingly, the report also states that there are 383,000 fewer people with jobs in the USA in July than there were in May, even though there were supposedly jobs created in both June and July. The truth is that because of the way that the statistics are compiled, we do not know for sure if there were more or less jobs in the country last month. The real news is not that jobs were created, but rather that there is just no clear indication either way.
Second, according to BLS, the unemployment rate is down from 9.5% a year ago to 9.1% last month. The same report, however, makes clear that essentially the entire reduction is the result of people giving up the search for work and dropping out of the labor force. The drop is not the result of the creation of new jobs.
These are terrible results. Last summer was the "summer of recovery" according to Obama. Since then, we have been told that the economy is in recovery and growing. We did hear about a "few bumps in the road" according to Obama, but there was still supposed to be growth. But all that supposed growth really came down to people getting so discouraged that they gave up looking for work. Maybe Obama is hoping that everyone gets so disgusted that we all give up lookiing for work and the number of unemployed goes down to zero. Imagine that! It would mean full employment under Obama.
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