Jobs Drop by 95,000 In September, Unemployment Rate Gets Not One Iota Better In 14 F-ing Months
Oct 8, 2010 5 Comments ›› Pat Dollard
Private companies added 64,000 new jobs in September but more government layoffs means a net loss of 95,000 jobs. The unemployment rate remained unchanged at 9.6 percent.
It was the fourth straight month of net losses due to dropping government payrolls and little hiring in the private sector.
A total of 77,000 temporary jobs for the decennial census were terminated last month, according to the Labor Department’s monthly report. On top of that local governments cut 76,000 jobs in September, mostly in the education sector.
The jobless rate has now topped 9.5 percent for 14 straight months, the longest stretch since the 1930s. The numbers don’t bode well for Democrats who touted the $814 billion stimulus plan and other government-inspired initiatives to get teh economy rolling.
President Obama was expected to discuss the jobs report on Friday morning. Ahead of those remarks, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele issued a statement saying the unemployment rate should allow voters to issue a “final verdict” on the administration’s economic policies.
“President Obama and his left wing allies on Capitol Hill have spent trillions of taxpayer dollars with nothing to show for it but a mountain of crippling debt and chronic joblessness,” Steele said. “After nearly two years of weak leadership and broken promises, the American people will go to the polls in less than a month and reject this Administration’s economic mismanagement.”
Nearly 14.8 million people were unemployed last month. That’s almost 100,000 fewer than in August.
Analysts had predicted about 75,000 private sector jobs and a slight uptick in the unemployment rate.
Gallup issued a survey on Thursday that found unemployment, not seasonally adjusted, actually rose to about 10.1 percent in September, marked by a steep rise in the second half of the month that would likely not be measured in the government’s unemployment report on Friday.
Gallup noted that part-time employment was down and underemployment remains persistent.
Weak job growth will likely force the Federal Reserve to take additional steps to boost the economy next month by buying government debt to try to lower interest rates
and spur more borrowing. The Fed has already bought $1.7 trillion worth of mortgage-related and government bonds. That plan, however, could be hindered by calls for freezes on foreclosures that have sent the mortgage market spiraling.
While the Congressional Budget Office announced Thursday that the fiscal year 2010 deficit was $125 billion less than it had projected, at $1.3 trillion, and the National Bureau of Economic Research announced the recession had ended in June 2009, revised data released Friday also showed a troubling trend.
Payrolls in July and August was revised lower by 15,000. Overall, employment in the 12 months to March had been overstated by 366,000.
Hourly wages and hours worked remained unchanged.
Since the recession ended in June 2009, the economy has grown 3 percent, according to economists at Deutsche Bank. That’s less than half the average 6.5 percent pace in postwar recoveries.
