The official unemployment rate has topped 9%, and that doesn’t count the folks whose unemployment benefits have run out and have given up. President Obama will be in Ohio today doing some sort of victory lap for losing billions on the auto bailouts. I’m sure all of the unemployed, or underemployed Americans, won’t be celebrating.
The Washington Post placed part of the blame on Japan.
Employers hired only 54,000 new workers in May, the fewest in eight months, and the unemployment rate rose to 9.1 percent.
The Labor Department report offered startling evidence that the U.S. economy is slowing, hampered by high gas prices and natural disasters in Japan that have hurt U.S. manufacturers.
The pace of hiring has weakened dramatically from the previous three months, when the economy added an average of 220,000 new jobs. Private companies hired only 83,000 new workers in May — the fewest in nearly a year.
Stock futures plunged after the report was released.
I heard that the economy needs to add over 400,000 jobs every month for three years to bring the unemployment rate down to under 7%. We are definitely not heading in the right direction.
According to The Wall Street Journal, economists were caught off guard again. (Emphasis mine.)
Nonfarm payrolls rose by 54,000 last month as the private sector posted the smallest jobs gain in nearly a year, the Labor Department said Friday in its survey of employers. Payrolls data for the previous two months were revised down by a total 39,000 to show increases of 232,000 jobs in April and 194,000 in March.
The jobless rate, which is obtained from a separate household survey, unexpectedly rose to 9.1% in May from 9.0% in April. There are almost 13.9 million Americans who would like to work but can’t get a job.
Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had forecast payrolls would rise by 160,000 and the jobless rate would edge lower to 8.9%.
Even though the recession ended two years ago, the pace of economic growth has been too slow to make up for the ground lost following the financial crisis of 2008 and 2009. Recent signs point to more economic weakness ahead. The manufacturing sector, once the driver of the recovery, in May posted its biggest monthly drop since 1984.
Oh yes, it’s so unexpected.
Update: The Other McCain linked – thanks!
Tags: jobs, recession, rises, unemployment
“Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had forecast payrolls would rise by 160,000 and the jobless rate would edge lower to 8.9%.”
….I’m thinkin’ it’s about time some economists were laid off. They certainly don’t know how to do their jobs or how things work in the real world. Maybe they need to go try to run a small business. Get a clue. Until this government is stuffed back into its box and business owners feel less terrified, the decline will continue.
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[...] of years? And where do the media find these idiotic financial journalists like the guy who, as The Lonely Conservative notes, tried to blame U.S. unemployement on the Japanese [...]
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These ‘economists’ need to understand that hopium doesn’t work on the economy and all the excuses in the world won’t change anything.
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If a Repub was in office we wouldn’t hear the end of the MSM want to run them out on a rail.
Obama is President and we hear what? Crickets.
Oh Hail Obama!
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[...] Budget in PicturesOn the GOP 2012 PrimaryObama and Boehner to Talk Debt Ceiling Over a Round of GolfUnemployment is Again Above 9%THE OTHER MCCAINBecause I Know What’s NewsUnexpectedly! Unemployment Hits 9.1%This Just In: [...]
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