Data for March Show Big Surge in Job Creation

[radfringe]

"There is only a silver lining," said Mickey Levy, chief economist at Banc of America Securities. "There are very few gray clouds."

ummm...not seeing much silver lining my pockets these days.... soooooooo how about you? What's in your pocket?

:evilgrin:

======================


http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2004/04/03/business/20040403_ECON_CHART.html

Data for March Show Big Surge in Job Creation
By EDUARDO PORTER
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/03/business/03ECON.html?hp
Published: April 3, 2004

After a long period of stagnation, job creation finally surged ahead in March, the government reported yesterday. The gains surpassed all but the most optimistic expectations among analysts and provided President Bush with a shot of good news to help counter Democratic attacks on his economic policies.

The economy added 308,000 jobs in March, the Labor Department estimated, pulling out of a pattern of tepid employment growth to clock the largest number of new jobs in a single month since April 2000.

Unemployment — which is measured through a separate household survey rather than by tracking company payrolls — inched up to 5.7 percent from 5.6 percent in February. But changes in the unemployment rate tend to lag other economic indicators.

-----buried at bottom of page two ---- snip---

Not all the labor indicators turned positive in March, however. According to the household survey, almost 24 percent of all the people listed as jobless have been unemployed for at least half a year, a full percentage point above the level in February and the highest level since July 1983, when unemployment soared to 9.3 percent.

At the same time, the average workweek of nonsupervisory workers slipped by 0.1 hour, to 33.7 hours. And average weekly earnings fell by 0.2 percent over the month to $523.70 — barely 1.8 percent higher than it was a year ago.

Indeed, despite the employment increase, the index of aggregate weekly hours of production or nonsupervisory workers — which measures the aggregate amount of work outside of farms in the private sector — fell by 0.1 percentage point in March to 99 percent.

"You can still find labor market slack in these numbers," said Jared Bernstein, a economist at the union-supported Economic Policy Institute. "The question is, Is this just a head fake or will jobs stay on a path for growth?"

[RC]

1. When I was hearing this being explained yesterday by a

repuk, "lier, lies, more damn lies" etc. was going through my head. Out sourcing jobs was one of the things that was helping the economy. Free trade helps everyone. Ya, sure it is.

The criminals are just spinning their cooked books.
If jobs are being out sourced over seas, then the money that that job paid is not being used in this country to pay the mortgage, buy cars, being saved for retirement or kids college or other wise being used to support the economy in this country. The money saved by out sourcing is going to the upper management of said company. It gets invested in the stock market. The market for Yachts and humvees should be fairly saturated by now. Houses are being bought for investment, which is propping up that market.

Manufacturing jobs are way down, even with McDonalds. The economic gas tank is getting near empty and soon if we don't do something, we will be running on momentum.

[rfranklin]

2. Those job numbers were bogus...here's why

Turns out that the 300,000 jobs supposedly created weren't "created," they just re-materialized!

OOPS! LABOR DEPT. LOST 321,000 AMERICAN JOBS!

By JOHN CRUDELE
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------April 1, 2004 -- LET'S make some trouble.
Tomorrow morning the Labor Department will announce the number of new jobs created in March as well as the monthly unemployment rate. The experts - you will recognize them because for months they've been sitting in the corner with dunce caps on - are expecting 125,000 new positions to have appeared during the month and the unemployment rate to fall from 5.6 percent to 5.5 percent.

We all know how politically sensitive these figures are, especially in a presidential election year. And I don't have to tell you how much Wall Street obsesses over them.

Well, what if I told you that the Labor Department made 321,000 jobs disappear in January. If it hadn't been for this move, Washington would have reported monstrous growth of 433,000 jobs that month instead of a paltry 112,000.

Don't believe me?

Go to the Labor Department's website: http://www.bls.gov/web/cesbd.htm. This is a section on the so-called "birth/death model adjustment," and it's buried deep in thousands of pages of other facts and figures.

You'll see a "-321" in the box under January 2004 - which means that 321,000 jobs were removed from the totals reported to the public

--More--

<http://www.nypost.com/business/17897.htm

[DoYouEverWonder]

3. There probably has been an increase in jobs created

but is has nothing to do with W's economic policies. Since, I am a small business owner here's my POV in this.

Remember in March 2003, we were about to go to war and we were under Orange alert? As a result, I had the worst March in 10 years. Now we are heading into an election year, which in and of itself generates a huge surge in business. But mainly, even though things are bad in Iraq, we didn't have Armageddon.

As a result, commerce is starting to get back to normal. My monthly sales are still way off from before Bu$h was selected but they are a lot better than last year. Also I am spending more money because all those repairs I put off doing last year can no longer be put off.

So at this point I've had to add back in some positions that I cut last year and that makes the employments stats go up.

However, anyone with a realistic point of view, understands that if Bu$h gets reselected in 2004, things are going to go from bad to worse and 2003 will look like a great year in comparison.

[radfringe]

5. a local manufacturer -- small business

that my company deals with just went out of business -- 30 people laid off

he lost two large contracts from other companies that are now buying the product from china...

[DoYouEverWonder]

6. I'm one of the lucky ones

a lot of my competitors went out of business too. So even though my sales increased it doesn't mean there's been an increase overall. I've just manage to maintain the size of my piece of the pie, even though the rest of the pie is rapidly disappearing.

[radfringe]

9. :evilgrin:

we need to make the pie higher...

[OneTwentyoNine]

4. Yeah.. and Gateway made it official that all retail stores are closing

That story has been floating around but its official and about 2500 will be out of a job in a few weeks. But hey...with this "booming economy" they'll find work in no time.

David

[Nobody]

7. But what kinds of jobs are they?

Minimum wage jobs or the kind that come with a living wage and benefits?

What do they mean by "marginally attached" anyway? Temp workers? Part timers?

I'd love to see job creation stats broken down by wage level.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

8. temp workers, defense, waitress's, maids,

[MrBenchley]

10. Gee, if I was a high muckty-muck at Bank of America

not paying dick in taxes and able to salt away six-figure bonuses in the Caymans, I might not see any dark clouds either.

[Rageneau]

11. How many of these new jobs are war-related?

How many of these new jobs are for Blackwater contractors, or Brown and Root roustabouts or Halliburton employees?

A lot, I bet.

These kinds of jobs subtract from, not add to, the national product.

Which is war.