U.S. Labor Market Poised for Gains as Jobless Rate Stabilizes

[Purveyor]

By Timothy R. Homan

March 6 (Bloomberg) -- The unemployment rate in the U.S. held at 9.7 percent in February and employers cut fewer jobs than anticipated, indicating improvement in the labor market even as East Coast blizzards forced temporary closings of some businesses.

Payrolls dropped by 36,000 last month after a revised 26,000 decrease in January, a Labor Department report showed yesterday in Washington. The jobless rate, which has not increased since October, held at 9.7 percent, even as more people entered the workforce.

Stocks and the dollar rallied while Treasuries fell as investors reckoned the economy would have added jobs were it not for seasonal snowfall records in cities including Baltimore and Philadelphia. The U.S. needs employment growth to sustain a recovery from a recession that has cost 8.4 million jobs since December 2007.

“The weather effects were enough to transform what would’ve been a positive into a negative,” said David Resler, chief economist at Nomura Securities International Inc. in New York, referring to payrolls. “Job growth is happening as we speak. Companies are seeing a stabilization of demand.”

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http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=asiSxsaS0pIU&pos=1

[tom_paine]

1. True or not? One can never tell with American Corporate-Controlled Media

Partially true? Completely untrue?

Or just more "keep the sheep docile with more 'prosperity is just around the corner' while we fleece them"?

Problem is...it's impossible to tell, these days. Our national information stream is too poisoned with BushoCorporate Propaganda.

[belpejic]

2. I think we need a few months of growth.

If we have consistent growth by July I might start to get my hopes up. Until then I'm personally expecting the pain to continue.

[tom_paine]

3. Consider also that no complex human function like global economy travels in one direction forever

We will experience a few "dead cat bounces" on the way down.

And don't be surprised if the massive "funny money" $13-$20 trillion (that's $XX,000,000,000,000!) Fed "resuscitation" doesn't indeed give it a little goose like electricity shot into a dying body twitches the muscles.

Twenty trillion is a lot of moolah to buy False Realities with, even as the currency is sprialling downward.

But ultimately, our corrupted information streams and National Dialog make it impossible to really know other than by looking around us personally, and that is notoriously unreliable

[99 Percent Sure]

4. Uh huh, right. It's stabilizing for everyone except the

15+ million who are unemployed, most of whom are the long term jobless who either haven't had even a nibble or an interview in months and months, or who get interviewed and never hear from the employer again, or who are led down the primrose path by employers who give them supreme hope that they're the next new hire, only to snatch the rug from underneath them at the last moment.

Employers shed 36K jobs last month, even if, according to Brokaw on Morning Junk, CEOs in a meeting of some sort, all raised their hands that they would be hiring this year. But stabilize, I guess, is new speak for providing false hope to the jobless, who still confront the reality that, for every one job, there are 6 applicants. Nevermind that that one job likely doesn't pay a living wage.

Then there is the meager jobs bill that might-might, I say- get a few hundred thousand hired by the end of the year. We won't even talk about the underemployed.

But whatever.