WASHINGTON, May 8, 2009
Layoffs Drop, But Unemployment Up To 8.9%
Fewest Number Of Jobs Lost In 6 Months, But Jobless Rate Rises With Businesses Wary Of New Hiring
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The Labor Department tally wasn't nearly as deep as the 620,000 job losses that economists were expecting. The rise in the unemployment rate from 8.5 percent in March matched economists' forecasts.
If laid-off workers who have given up looking for new jobs or have settled for part-time work are included, the unemployment rate would have been 15.8 percent in April, the highest on records
dating back to 1994.
One analyst thinks the "worst has passed" in terms of job losses in the recession.
Companies also keep a tight rein on workers hours. The average work week in April stayed at 33.2 hours, matching the record low set in March.
Since the recession began in December 2007, the economy has lost a net total of 5.7 million jobs.
As the recession eats into sales and profits, companies have turned to layoffs and other cost-cutting measures to survive the storm. Those including holding down workers' hours, and freezing or cutting pay.
Employers last month cut the fewest jobs since 380,000 in October. Nonetheless, the April job losses were widespread.
Construction companies axed 110,000 jobs, down from 135,000 in March. Factories got rid of 149,000 jobs, down form 167,000 the month before. Retailers cut payrolls by nearly 47,000, less than the nearly 64,000 cut in March. And job losses in financial activities dropped by 40,000, down from 43,000 in the previous month.
The slower pace of job losses - along with an increase in government jobs of 72,000 - helped to temper the overall payroll reductions in April.
On Thursday, the Labor Department said weekly new jobless claims fell to 601,000, a 14-week low and much better than the jump to 635,000 that analysts expected.
However, the overall jobs situation remains tough. The 8.9 percent jobless rate is the highest since the fall of 1983; that's when the country was recovering from a severe recession that drove unemployment past 10 percent.
Meanwhile, President Barack Obama is expected to outline steps Friday to help the unemployed pursue education and training, and keep their unemployment benefits, too.
Currently, people who are out of work and want to go back to school have to give up their monthly unemployment check. And if they decide to return to school, they often don't qualify for federal grants because eligibility is based upon the previous year's income.
The president was announcing the new measures hours after the government releases its April unemployment report. The national unemployment rate stands at a 25-year high of 8.5 percent, and many analysts expect it to climb to 8.9 percent.
Under the measures Mr. Obama was scheduled to outline, according to the White House:
"Our unemployment insurance system should no longer be a safety net, but a stepping-stone to a new future," Mr. Obama said in remarks prepared for delivery Friday. "It should offer folks educational opportunities they wouldn't otherwise have" and give them skills they need to "get ahead when the economy comes back."
Mr. Obama has directed Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and Education Secretary Arne Duncan to implement the changes. Both departments also have launched a new Web site, http://www.opportunity.gov, to help get the word out to the public.
States also will send letters to every unemployment recipient describing available training opportunities and financial support.
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Add a Comment See all 86 Comments
- Don't worry about it. In a few months the people who can no longer qualify for unemployment will no longer be counted in the rate and the media can get back to stating that unemployment is down.
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- Unfortunately, the economy is still in decline. There are very few jobs to be had and more people becoming unemployed every week. I'm lucky to have trained in a field that is almost recession proof, but it's not a field that pays very well. Still, I do have steady employment in a time when many wonder when the pink slip will come or when they will find a new job.
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- "Does that really make sense layoffs drops but unemployment up?"
Yes it does. If you lost 600k jobs last month and within a month have not found jobs for at least 500k of them and now lose 500k this month, the unemployed number increases. - Reply to this comment
- Does that really make sense layoffs drops but unemployment up? You would think if layoffs dropped so would unemployment claims or is there also a 14 day waiting period before the news papers report the real #'s? I worked for Beckett Media and they are laying continually laying of employees not to save others jobs but to employee people in India. Beckett Media has sent finance, IT, prepress, graphic art and administrative position to India so they can pay pennies on the $. If you go to the parent companies website eliresearch.com all of the jobs that layed off employees did are being posted for job openings in India. This needs to stop keep jobs in America!
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- Don't worry Libs,
Your Messiah Obama will get the unemployment rate over 10% very soon.
Have faith in Change We Can Believe In.
Posted by hawksprings at 10:30 PM : May 8, 2009
Every time I read one of your posts it makes me laugh. Especially the Messiah inference since you are the one who actually believes in a Messiah. A Messiah that is 3,000 years old who was written about 50 years after his death by his apostle who just happened to benefit handsomely from being the "voice" of the Messiah.
I am not obligated to believe the words of those who claim to be the voice of God, nor am I foolish enough to think Obama is the Messiah. But your kind are just that gullible. Your kind read the conservative rag, The Weekly Standard, that is coincidentally owned by Moon Sun, who actually claims to be the second coming of Jesus Christ. The Weekly Standard started the airplanes in the Iraqi desert being used as training for Al Qaida roomer and you bought into it, hook, line and sinker like a gullible sheep of the flock.
Fall to your knees and pray to your Messiah, Hawk, that you keep your job since I am having a hard time believing that anyone could hire you to doing anything other than flatulate the National Anthem on command. - Reply to this comment
- Don't look for any job creation until you're prepared to vote the commies out of Congress.
People with money are not stupid enough to risk it and create jobs when any money they make from it will be sucked up by the government and spent on unnecessary and foolish projects and programs that they government mismanages and bankrupts within a year with it's corruption.
It's that simple.
Posted by Rowdy109 at 6:00 AM : May 9, 2009
Just because you say it, does not make it true. You have to come up with some evidence that we have Communists running our nation to back up your accusations. I have yet to see you ever back up any of your gibberish with fact.
The problem is that Obama's economic advisers are all Free Market Cheerleader, like you. They are willing to bailout corporate America at the expense of the people. Rowdy, that is the definition of Mussolini's Corporate State, aka Fascism. So, i am saying that you do not even have a very good grasp of what Fascism is much less Communism.
The truth is that since you own a cold call Sale center that hires illegals to sell products that people do not need nor want, regulation of your little exploitation enterprise scares you. - Reply to this comment
- Thanks to Obama's bailing out Warren Buffet at Goldman Sucks, more and more of us are doomed to 'knock-out restrooms' and 'make sandwiches' for a living all the way through retirement.
Thanks Obama/Gheitner/Summers. - Reply to this comment
- Just another smokescreen,the government feeding the media a line of crap to feed to us..I have been a union carpenter here in NY for 14 years and Ive never seen it so slow in my entire career..I have worked a whole 3 weeks the entire year..So dont tell me that things arent bad...Im tired of the empty promises by this lousy ,greedy government....All these so called programs out to help us who are unemployed,but wait to they tell you the laundry list of things that will disqualify you from receiving any of them,,Like trying to refinance to a better rate....Oh forgot to tell you that you MUST be employed to have a shot at that benefit...So who are these programs out to help??????THe banks and the greedy bastards in this country..Just another stroke job to make it look like they are trying to help the average Joe....The banks are keeping this bailout to themselves and not trickling down to us...This is what we call the 4 years shuffle in Wasington..The same garbage just mixed around ...same result...It is sickening..What we need is some lunatics to go to Washington and start killing people and put the fear in them..In other countrys the government is afraid of the people here in America we are scared shi* of the government..We need a revolt against Washington...How much do they expect us to absorb....The high gas prices that almost bankrupt many homeowners,,The war in Iraq that is draining the economy and rising taxes on the all levels in this country....Whats next ???Charge us for air...Americans should see the way other countries operate..Universal health care,,,So they dont lose everything they ever worked for if they need an operation or get cancer.....If we buy a car from another country or drink a wine from another country why not follow some other good ideas they have..Want to know why????Because Washington needs to keep the strangle hold on all of us and keep us working to they day we die...Real Nice Country....Im sure this is what our forefathers had in mind when the started this country....Greed and selfishness is what did it......
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- The fact that the unemployment figures are going up, should come as a surprise to no one!
Ob course, they are! They'll continue that way until the economy bottoms!
But, hopefully they're being reported more accurately! In the Bush administration, the bad news or figures were underestimated and the good news or figures were overestimated!
Hopefully, this administration will just report them and minimize the amount of "spin" they put on them to convince us what they mean?!
Because we know what they mean---not enough people working, more jobs needed! - Reply to this comment
- "Even as we are washed away."
SearingTruth
?Ladies and gentlemen, take my advice; Pull down your pants, and slide on the ice.?
-Sidney Freedman, MASH 4077 - Reply to this comment
- Unemployed = demacrat
I dont know any republicans tht are on welfare !
Posted by Trust_me_
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Of course you don't! You wouldn't admit it if you did know any. Your moniker "Trust_me" is the first clue...sounds like a used-car salesman's motto.
A lot of republicans were on welfare during the past 8 years. They were called "Bush administration employees." - Reply to this comment
- Rush Limbaugh is the best thing that ever happened for the Republican Party!!! He is one lovable Teddy Bear !!!!
Posted by endeaver-2009 at 10:25 AM : May 8, 2009
Actually, Rush Limpballs is the best thing that ever happened to/for the Democratic party. There's a reason the GOP has a low favorability rate of 20%. Perhaps that reason is Limpballs.
Funny, even Repug politicians are saying bad things about Limpballs, and then grovelling back to his feet when he castrates them for it. Except for Colin Powell. Powell has shown more courage standing up to Limpballs than he showed when he was in the Bush administration. In any event, good for Powell for not cow-towing to the republican puppet-string-puller Limpballs.
Funny...my image of Limpballs is him bobbing up and down like an inflated oversized basketball chanting "Rush, Rush, Rush, Rush, Rush, Rush." And this guy get $400 million to do shiitt like that. Where's the justice? There's 40,000 worthy teachers in this country who could share that wealth and get about a 25% pay increase. - Reply to this comment
- Fact is Obama has out spent Bushes 8 year total in only 3+ mos.
Posted by lili50441
Fact is, your dreaming. Dream on.... Not even close. Post your sources...if you have any.
What is the cost of Bush's war in Iraq? You don't know because it's not part of the Bush budget...never was. Bush's war was funded every three months and therefore UNDER the radar of the official budget.
LoL!!! You, your children, and your grandchildren will be paying for Bush's war for a VERY long time.
Besides, Obama's "stimulation" spending will, for the most part, stay in this country. Money spent on wars is pisssed away, gone forever, no viable ROI. Especially in Iraq. What have we gained? No oil. No democracy. How many years now? How many American lives were "given" for "our" freedom when in fact there were and still are far more serious threats to US than Iraq was or ever will be. - Reply to this comment
- Remember how bad the Libs were saying the economy was when under Bush the unemployment was 4.7%? REALLY TERRIBLE!!
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- Unemployed = demacrat
I dont know any republicans tht are on welfare !
Posted by Trust_me_
Unemployment isn't welfare. - Reply to this comment
- I dont know any republicans tht are on welfare !
Posted by Trust_me_ at 11:36 AM : May 8, 2009
Everyone who works at Haliburton. - Reply to this comment
- I dont know any republicans tht are on welfare !
Posted by Trust_me_ at 11:36 AM : May 8, 2009
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I do... Welfare, SSI, and Social Security too... and yet they still bash Obama. Sad. - Reply to this comment
- Unemployed = demacrat
I dont know any republicans tht are on welfare ! - Reply to this comment
- The unemployment rate is at least double the reported number. This is the SECOND GREAT REPUBLICAN depression of the last 100 years. The good news is that last time, the Democrats controlled the government for 40 years.
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- Too many people chasing too few jobs: high school grads, college grads, those recently laid off, people who have been unemployed since long before this mess began, immigrants illegal & otherwise, etc. I don't envy them.
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