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

[babylonsister]

U.S. Labor Market Poised for Gains as Jobless Rate Stabilizes
March 06, 2010, 12:28 AM EST

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.”

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index rose 1.4 percent to close at 1,138.7 in New York. The dollar strengthened 1.4 percent to 90.3 yen from 89.02 the previous day. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 3.68 percent at 4:24 p.m. in New York from 3.60 percent late the prior day.

more...

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-03-06/u-s-labor-market-poised-for-gains-as-jobless-rate-stabilizes.html

[MadHound]

1. Umm, we lost more jobs in February than we did in January,

And more people have gone into the "discouraged worker" category. If you added up everybody, the numbers that the U3 and U6 count, we're looking at somewhere around 20-22% unemployment.

Oh, and blaming anything on the weather is just a load of horseshit, it wasn't like the entire country was buried in snow, just along the East coast. The other two thirds of the country could get around just fine.

And I'm sorry, but the markets aren't really a good indicator of anything.

Meanwhile, since another 125,000 jobs/month have to be created just to keep even, we're really losing by a lot more.

This is more cheerleading, trying to talk the economy up without doing anything substantive

[roamer65]

2. We need 150K to 200K job growth a month...

just to "break even".

I don't think we'll see that kind of sustained growth for many years. Too many hurdles still remain, such as the commercial real estate problem and sovereign debt crises.

At best this will be the dreaded "L-shaped" recession of Japanese fame...at worst a double dip near-depression.

[Birthmark]

3. It's nice to see the media doubling our chocolate ration

Statistical chocolate. Yum!

[theoldman]

4. Unfortunately for the Republicans, the job market is probably close to the bottom.

Job growth may be slow but it will be on its way up by November. Nothing stays down or up forever.

[demosincebirth]

5. bad news for republicans.

[applegrove]

6. yup. I'd love to see how the GOP handle a huge Obama jobs bill in congress.

It would go againt all the Repukes hope for this year.

[Subdivisions]

7. They can fudge the numbers all they want. That's not going to create

100,000 jobs per month no matter how hard you wish it.