For many unemployed workers, jobs aren't coming back

There's some evidence that gainfully employed congressfolk are recoiling from extending unemployment benefits because they've trouble believing that anyone wouldn't be able to find a job after more than a year. To some degree, this reflects a view of the recession that's national rather than regional. In fact, some states, like North Dakota, have very low unemployment, while some areas, like Detroit, have incredibly high unemployment.

This was a bad month for jobs in the USA. Not only did the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report that the number of jobs remained at the same level as last month (125,000 additional jobs are needed for population growth, on average and we have huge losses from the credit crisis recession that have to be gained back) the last 2 months were revised down. The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for June was revised from a gain of 46,000 to a gain of 20,000, and the July was revised down from gaining 117,000 job to gaining

Erez Davidi submits: The U.S. consumer is the main driver of the U.S. economy, being responsible for 70 percent of the U.S. GDP. However, don’t expect that the mighty U.S. consumer will be back any time soon—at least not consuming like it used to. There are several reasons for this.

Note: Apparently the graph server had a problem this morning. It appears to be working now (all the links were OK). Here is the employment graph gallery. Sorry for the inconvenience. This was a very disappointing report.

The Worst is yet to Come: Unemployed Americans Should Hunker Down for More Job Losses by Nouriel Roubini Conditions in the U.S. labor markets are awful and worsening. While the official unemployment rate is already 10.2% and another 200,000 jobs were lost in October, when you include discouraged workers and partially employed workers the figure is a whopping 17.5%.

Are bad jobs at bad wages better than no jobs at all? Should the US demand third world economies pay "living wages"? If so, and if countries don't oblige, should the US impose tariffs so the US does not lose jobs to such countries. Moral Outrage Over Free Trade This is what I think....

Blank also toured Palermo’s Pizza with Mayor Barrett and met with local business leaders as part of White House Business Council outreach effortActing U.S. Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank traveled to Milwaukee today to deliver the keynote address at the 113th League of Wisconsin Municipalities Annual Conference to discuss the American Jobs Act–how it will spur economic growth, accelerate job creation and benefit Wisconsin.  The League is a nonprofit and nonpartisan association of cities and villages that serves as an information clearinghouse, advocacy organization and legal resource for Wisconsin municipalities; it is comprised of 190 cities and 392 villages. At the Conference, Blank discussed details of President Obama’s American Jobs Act.  Blank highlighted the different ways the plan would make an immediate impact on job creation: cutting taxes for small businesses, putting more money in the pockets of consumers through an expanded payroll tax cut, and preventing the layoffs of teachers, firefighters and policemen, while putting construction workers to work through much-needed renovations to school, roads, rail and airports renovations. Blank underlined the need for Congress to act quickly on the bipartisan measures in the Jobs Act. “Outside experts say the American Jobs Act would put nearly two million people to work, while putting more money in the pockets of workers and repairing infrastructure vital to enhancing America’s competitiveness,” Blank said. “It’s time for Democrats and Republicans in Congress to come together and swiftly pass the measures in the Jobs Act, which will put people back to work right away and put more money in the pockets of American families.” Earlier in the day, Blank joined Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett on a tour at Palermo’s Pizza, a rapidly growing regional company that added almost 100 jobs last year and is leading the “Earn to Learn” program with the Mayor’s Office, which gives high school-aged youth a chance to develop marketable skills through direct work experience and training seminars. 

FRIDAY'S jobs report touched off a round of hand-wringing over the possibility of permanent damage to America's labour force as a result of years of labour-market weakness. Labour-force participation fell in April; there has been virtually no recovery in the employment-population ratio over the past three years, despite steady (though disappointingly slow) employment growth.