Employers Cut Jobs For 6th-Straight Month

62,000 Employees Slashed From Payrolls; High Energy Costs Blamed For U.S. Labor Woes

(CBS/ AP)  Employers cut payrolls by 62,000 in June, the sixth straight month of nationwide job losses, underscoring the economy's fragile state. The unemployment rate held steady at 5.5 percent.

The latest snapshot of business conditions, released by the Labor Department on Thursday, showed continued caution on the part of employers who are chafing under high energy prices and are uncertain about how long the economy will be stuck in a sluggish mode, reflecting fallout from housing, credit and financial troubles.

Since the beginning of 2008, roughly 400,000 people have lost their jobs, CBS News correspondent Jeff Glor reports.

Heavy job losses in construction, manufacturing, business services and retailing eclipsed job gains in education and health services, leisure and hospitality, and government.

The report was largely on target with economists' forecasts. They had been expecting employers to reduce payrolls by around 60,000 jobs in June and for the unemployment rate to slip a notch to 5.4 percent.

The jobless rate spiked to 5.5 percent in May. That marked the biggest over-the-month increase in two decades and left the rate at its highest since October 2004.

Job losses in both April and May turned out to be considerably deeper than had been thought. Payrolls dropped by 67,000 in April, versus the 28,000 previously reported. And, losses in May came to 62,000, rather than the 49,000 initially estimated.

Also Thursday, oil prices neared $146 a barrel Thursday for the first time ever on reports of declining U.S. stockpiles and the threat of conflict with Iran. Comments by Saudi Arabia's oil minister suggesting his country had no immediate plans to boost production also lifted prices.

So far this year, the economy has lost a total of 438,000 jobs, an average of 73,000 a month.

The economy is the top concern of voters. The faltering labor market is a source of anxiety not only for those looking for work but also for those worried about keeping their jobs during uncertain economic times.

In a separate report from the department, the number of newly laid off people signing up for unemployment insurance rose sharply last week. New applications jumped by 16,000 to 404,000, the highest level since late March. The increase was bigger than economists were expecting; they were forecasting claims to rise to around 385,000.

With inflation concerns growing, the Federal Reserve last week ended an aggressive rate-cutting campaign, started last September to shore up economic growth.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues are caught between risky crosscurrents of plodding economic growth and spiraling energy and food prices that threaten to spread inflation. Lowering rates further would worsen inflation. But boosting rates too soon to fend off inflation could hurt the fragile economy.

Workers with jobs saw modest wage gains in June

Average hourly earnings rose to $18.01 in June, a 0.3 percent rise from May. That matched economists' forecasts. Over the past year, wages have grown 3.4 percent, the smallest annual increase since January 2006. Paychecks, though, aren't stretching as far because of high food and energy prices.

In its latest economic assessment last week, the Fed observed that "labor markets have softened further."

However, the Fed believed that its powerful series of rate reductions along with the government's $168 billion stimulus package, including tax rebates, will help lift economic growth over time.

Some economists fear that when the bracing force of the rebates fades, the economy could be in for another rough patch. Those analysts worry that the economy - which has been coping with sluggish growth at best - will have a "relapse" and lose momentum near the end of this year.

There's been a lot of talk about whether the economy is on the brink of, or has fallen into, its first recession since 2001. The official determination, made by a panel of academics, usually comes well after the fact.

Economists expect the unemployment rate to hit 6 percent or higher early next year, even if the economy were to show better growth. Companies will be reluctant to ramp up hiring until they feel certain the economy will stay on firmer footing.

[wardoglrs]

This is why Dr Paul was trying to wake you up. But you all choose to ignore his warning.Shut down all the feds buildings. Bring home all the troops around the world stop all subsides to the lobbyist, Deregulate the laws
on Energy and Farms etc , Each Fed Building cost you the tax payer at least 40 billion a year. The war cost 500 million a day thanks to the Military industrial complex which the Jew''s own and run. Soon you all will be on the streets eating out of garbage cans just like the homeless do. Welcome to there dream and your nightmare. You children will go to war and die for there banks. You are nothing your just a worm to them ask any brown skin person who lives in Israel that suffer at the hands of these monsters you so like to protect. They have truly scammed you and brain washed you. Now look at this mess and you still beg for more from the very people that could care less. But hey its just another day in the jungle

[whitemale08]

Posted by NAUcoming4U at 09:32 PM : Jul 03, 2008-

later dude.

[naucoming4u]

Our Dept. of Education has fullfilled it''''s mandate which was to literly use Orwelian language to dumb us down and not know what really is going on here.

Posted by whitemale08 at 09:43 PM : Jul 03, 2008
..........

Yep. I agree.

About the education system you mentioned, my example:

Create an unfunded mandate, with lofty (if not nearly impossible to reach) goals... and when the schools do not meet those mandates, put them into a "red" list of some type and eventually defund them.

Thus doing to the education system, what our current administration (and some in the past) have done to every entity of government which is...

...hack and slash the funding and staffing to the point where said government entity becomes unable to carry out the tasks that it was created for, making that government entity seem incompetent and inefficient to the masses of uninformed Americans.

Hence the favorite saying of the neo-cons, trumpeted by Regan in the 80''s, "...government is the problem."

Good seeing you again whitemale, but I must go for a few hours. Good evening.

[whitemale08]

Posted by NAUcoming4U at 09:32 PM : Jul 03, 2008=

all of these terminalogy of "free markets" is nonsense.

It''s to completely hide the fact that a small cartel of bankers run everything.

Take for example:

We''re taught in school that you can make more money beyond what''s physically possible in a lifetime.

That''s insane!

I know it''s sounds socialistic but it''s true.

A person let''s say can make no more then a $1,000,000 in a lifetime or better yet with gold close $1000 per ounce lets say 1000 ounces of gold.

Now why would you give credit to a person beyond that amount or paper iou notes that represent that amount to someone else?

Somewhere down the line someone has work for that or be the victim of theft or murder for that.

That''s a fact of life.

[whitemale08]

Posted by NAUcoming4U at 09:32 PM : Jul 03, 2008-

You''re exactly right.

Our Dept. of Education has fullfilled it''s mandate which was to literly use Orwelian language to dumb us down and not know what really is going on here.

[naucoming4u]

The system we live under is called "The Federal Reserve System" not a free market system.

Posted by whitemale08 at 09:11 PM : Jul 03, 2008
...........

Well, perhaps the term "free market" system refers to the elites who manipulate the MARKET at the expense of the nation, and get a FREE pass from our government to do so.

(sarcasm.... but then again.... maybe not)

[whitemale08]

Posted by alphaa10 at 04:40 PM : Jul 03, 2008

excellent post...I must add the following...

A real debate needs to take place about the intrinsic value of money.

Money doesn''t have an intrinsic value only humans do and animals to a lesser degree. Our environment of course.

But to assign an intrinsic value to paper over the labor of hard working Americans or people in general is not only foolish but disgusting and abonimable.

When Rush Limbaugh makes $400,000,000 of monetized debt who pays for that? Somebody does. Every last one of those Federal Reserve Notes must be earned through labor or exchanged for some natural resource.

If we say Rush is entitled to the worth of $400,000,000 in corn or wheat or energy that means we are saying that his junkyard dog political opinions are worth the heating of over 1,000,000 homes for one month!

That''s insane I don''t care how hard he''s worked his whole life and his career.

The system we have now is extremely distorted one because it''s under a cartel of banks that print post-dated checks out of thin air for a small few of lucky individuals.


The system we live under is called "The Federal Reserve System" not a free market system.

[gkc99]

"I am sure the mexican cartel has jobs openings with benefits "--Posted by zoe2006


While McCain is down there, he can get some support from the owners of the Mexican trucking industry--there are few groups McCain has done more to benefit than Mexican truckers--soon to come to US freeways with overloaded, uninspected trucks passed by paid-off inspectors.

Thanks, McBushits!

[gkc99]

"You''re doing a heck of a job, Bushits!"

Nice work.

[alphaa10-2009]

The American Free Market Is Not Free

The blustering ignorance of free market buffs has been laid bare-- the market does not regulate itself any more than a plundering army, sacking and burning a city, does urban renewal.

Likewise, an economy in recession is a city on fire, and the entire world worries how far and fast it might spread.

Deutsche Bank''s 30-year veteran CEO, Josef Ackermann, said recently he no longer believes in the self-correcting nature of the market.

Until now, it has been an article of faith for true believers the market is an organic, intelligent entity acting in its own interest. Ackermann''s comment has the impact of claiming "the God of Markets is dead".

(See "The American Free Market Is Not Free-- 2")

[alphaa10-2009]

The American Free Market Is Not Free-- 2

If the market is not the finger of God but the grubby and self-destructive hand of man, all his faults and ignorant, primitive and selfish impulses are written large across the rest of society.

Market mechanics are not holy writ, nor an abstrusely technical "black box" for economic high priests only, but the politics of power for the sake of profit and more power. Our last 30 years of crime and turbulence in the investment markets offers abundant proof.

Since the GOP call for deregulation in 1980''s and 1990''s, we have endured a series of plagues from withdrawal of regulatory controls and limits on financial and commodities markets. In the "greed is good" decade, we saw insider trading scandals erupt with regularity from the likes of Milken and Boesky. In the 1990''s, the deregulation of banking mutated into Neil Bush (brother of George Bush) and the Silverado scandal, costing taxpayers up to a $1 billion in bailout funding. In the late 1990''s, while the GOP held federal regulatory oversight captive, we saw Enron rear its ugly head, and then collapse a few years into the Bush term, taking investors and retirement funds with it.

(See "The American Free Market Is Not Free-- 3")

[alphaa10-2009]

The American Free Market Is Not Free-- 3

Some newer areas are still almost entirely without regulation, and others have scaled back or dropped time-tested and prudent rules. The result in too many cases is the same-- the law of the jungle prevails, and deceit and fraud run rampant. Not only professional market players are hurt, but retirement funds and individual Americans by the millions.

After three decades of such foolishness, promoting the interests of a tiny minority of very wealthy investors, it is time to call the fire department. We need desperately a wise and humane regulation of a market that manifestly is not a force of nature, but a very arbitrary and self-serving convention in the hands of far too few.

Only when the American market serves and protects the investment of all Americans equally will this country realize its promise.

[inventagod2]

Recession - Are we there yet???

This is yet another horrible thing that has happened on the Bu$h watch...

[underdogus01]

MEXICO is the WORLD''S no.9 exporter of crude oil, shipping an average of 1.7 MILLION barrels per day in 2007 and a top three supplier to the US wich buys roughly 80% of mexican exported oil......think again b.astards what MEXICO can do to you!! WE WILL FAVOR STRONGER CURRENCIES OVER WEAK ONES,AND WE WILL READJUST ACCORDINGLY...

[underdogus01]

frootloop47 yeah and MEXICO should dumped the dollar and switch into the EURO ..how do you like them apples MINUTEMAN?

[frootloop47]

Any company caught hiring illegal aliens:
1. The CEO should be arrested.
2. The Human Resources director should by arrested.
3. The Company should pay a $100,000 "Illegal Alien" tax for every illegan alien employee found.

[underdogus01]

oil breaks $144 new record, the path for $150 is cleared...

[naucoming4u]

But presto! Over a million jobs it claimed were created vanished into thin air.

Posted by forthepeopl1 at 01:51 PM : Jul 03, 2008
...........

If the people truly knew all the things our government has done (or not done)... for DECADES...

...there would probably have been a revolution many, many years ago!

[frootloop47]

Why after 12 years of a Republican controlled congress.
8 years of a Republican administration.
Another 1 year of a congress that Republicans are grid locking.
Knowing EVERY aspect of American is in the c rapper.
People STILL want to vote Republican shows either an extreme lack of intelligence OR lack of patriotism.

It is time for new leadership and direction.

[naucoming4u]

- Commerce before country, profit before people.

Posted by NAUcoming4U at 01:57 PM : Jul 03, 2008
..........

To add...

...corporate "America" (and others around the world) view sovereign countries, and the governments that administer them...

...as roadblocks, inconveniences, and nuisances. This is why corporate "America" works hard to buy as many politicians as possible... at any cost, to do their bidding... at any cost.