RebelCapitalist: Financial Information for the Rest of Us

Same old. Same old.

Oct 08, 2010 | By: Mr_Blue | Tags: unemployment, jobs, direct jobs program

Bureau of Labor Statistics released the Employment Situation for September 2010 and it was bleak. It bears repeating - it doesn’t have to be this way. Our economy continues to limp along and will probably do so for quite some time unless policy makers in Washington can get their acts together but that’s highly unlikely.

The summary of the report is here. Non-farm payroll dropped 95,000 in September mostly do to losses in Census jobs and state and local government. Private sector employment grew by 65,000. Unemployment rate remained at 9.6%. There were 26.8 million people either unemployed or underemployed. Not a good report.

The jobs hole created by the Great Recession is still huge and September’s job numbers did nothing to improve that. According to Economic Policy Institute, the job hole is still huge - 11.5 million jobs are needed to return pre-recession employment situation. Private sector is just ready to deliver that many jobs anytime soon.

Oh, to those idiots who think its good to lose 159,000 government jobs; besides the fact some were teachers, consider this: this means less income tax revenue, less purchases that businesses need to hire, more unemployment compensation that needs to be paid and more people struggling to pay mortgages or rent. This negatively impacts us all in so many ways and it really sucks for those who lost their jobs.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Time has come for a direct jobs program and more investment in our nation’s infrastructure. The longer we avoid addressing our employment situation in a more aggressive manner the deeper our problems will become.

Good luck.