AP buried the lead: Unemployment rises to 9.9% as the desperate return to job-seeking

[upi402]

AP By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer Jeannine Aversa, Ap Economics Writer – 1 hr 48 mins ago

WASHINGTON – More confident employers stepped up job creation in April, expanding payrolls by 290,000, the most in four years. The jobless rate rose to 9.9 percent as people streamed back into the market looking for work.

The hiring of 66,000 temporary government workers to conduct the census helped overall payroll growth last month. However, private employers — the backbone of the economy — boosted jobs, too. They added a surprisingly strong 231,000 positions last month, also the most since March 2006, the Labor Department reported Friday.

"Clearly companies have a newfound confidence in the future of the economic recovery and on the part of their own business prospects," said Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors. "The broadbased job gains are an indication that businesses are feeling more comfortable about expanding their work forces," he said.

(Buried the lead here in graph 4)
The unemployment rate rose from 9.7 percent in March to 9.9 percent in April, mainly because 805,000 jobseekers — (polishing a turd here)perhaps feeling better about their prospects — resumed their searches for work.

:shrug: Ever wonder why nobody buys newspapers anymore? This crap is why I canceled my subscription to my now-defunct local newspaper!:puke:

[SemiCharmedQuark]

1. How else do you explain an increasing unemployment rate despite net job growth?

Would you prefer they declare unemployment rising without mentioning jobs are being added instead of lost?

[Beetwasher]

2. Discouraged Job Seekers Are Looking Again

This is totally expected in an improving job market. That's not polishing a turd, it happens to be the truth.

Yes, the AP sucks, but this time they happen to be correct. The job market is improving. People who haven't found jobs and have given up see signs it's improving and are starting to look again.

[sharp_stick]

3. So whats wrong with what they wrote

Desperate job seekers are starting to look for work again. Shit, sounds like they are starting to see some possiblity of maybe, just maybe finding a fucking job after months of not bothering to look because gas costs money and it wasn't worth it to look.

[tonysam]

7. It's still shitty out here. Big whoop if employers are "hiring."

I don't see anything worth a shit being posted in three different states where I am searching for work--anything.

[sharp_stick]

9. It still doesn't

mean there is anything incorrect about the article or the numbers picture.

Two guys that are part of a Dads group where I am have just gone back to work after several months without a job.

I hope it improves for you soon.

[NNN0LHI]

11. After my one 13-week unemployment extension ran out under Reagan I stopped putting in applications

I started going around looking for work by word of mouth. Stopping at construction sites to talk to the crew boss or any place else I thought I could find some work.

I always found something. Usually a real dirty, crummy job that barely paid anything. But it kept my kids fed. So I did it anyway.

Don

[hfojvt]

18. it IS a big whoop to the people who get those jobs

even if most of the employers who are hiring are not in California or Nevada.

[hfojvt]

17. why do you and the OP feel that they are desperate?

If they really were desperate, they never would have stopped looking for work. Either that or their extended unemployment ran out, but a person on unemployment is required to look for work, so they cannot fall into the discouraged worker category. However, there is nothing that automatically says that those people re-entering the job market are desperate.

[phleshdef]

4. Can you disprove anything with the claim that more people started looking?

I bet you can't.

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[upi402]

26. My reply deleted? hmmm - You missed my point entirely

The article spins the jobless situation, that's the problem. The media is painting a falsely rosy picture but avoids the reality that there are uncounted unemployed flooding back into reality from the void. But the void is where the pain is.

Can YOU cite what the real unemployment rate is? I bet you can't. THAT is my point. The AP writer ignores that and isn't alone.

[phleshdef]

29. "Uncounted unemployed flooding back" is pretty much EXACTLY what the article said.

And the claim that the AP would go out of its way to paint any rosey pictures that would lend any credibility to the Obama administrations efforts to get this country back on track are laughable.

Your original response was deleted before I ever got a chance to read it, by the way. So for whatever reason it was deleted, I had nothing to do with it.

[phleshdef]

5. dupe

[Pirate Smile]

6. Wrong - you are missing the point.

Kurt_and_Hunter put it well in the thread I link to below:


The increased unemployment rate "does not represent an increase in human suffering, merely a shift in how people describe the same situation."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=433x289796

It was actually an increase in HOPE.

People see the job market turning around and are jumping back into the job market after giving up on it for some time.

[tonysam]

8. Oh, sure.

The unemployment rate is still outlandish. Until that drops, I don't believe one fucking thing the government puts out.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

12. The Economy Is Creating Jobs But Not Enough Jobs For Everybody That Wants One

That's what is lost in the back and forth on this board.

It would be like arriving at a disater area with 200 bottles of water when there are five hundred thirsty people. The first two hundred will be happy. The others not so much.

[SocialistLez]

13. +1 NT

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

14. But the unemployment rate is a thing the government puts out

So there would be no reason to believe a drop.

The unemployment situation is horrific. No doubt.

But the anomaly of more jobs with a higher unemployment rate is because the Labor department does two different surveys and the survey that determines the rate (rather than the number of jobs) is absurdly subjective.

The subjectivity of that survey hides a lot of unemployment. The situation has always been worse than the unemployment rate.

But that subjectivity can also hide an improvement.

All the unemployment rate really measures is how many people say they are looking for work. (As opposed to how many people are not working.) That's really inexact. I would scrap it, myself.

But the prospects for an unemployed person were slightly better in April than they were in March.

[SpartanDem]

15. You don't believe one thing the government puts out?

Sure you shouldn't believe everything. But to believe nothing isn't that mass distrust rather...teabaggerish

[phleshdef]

21. LOL, boy you really backed yourself into a lose-lose corner with that statement.

In order to believe there is a high unemployment rate, you HAVE to believe the other numbers the government puts out, otherwise, you can't believe there is a high unemployment rate.

[Octafish]

16. K&R for Truth -- Those who unrecced are not doing Obama any favors.

It's stupid to bury truth, even when it's inconvenient.

Good catch, upi402.

[phleshdef]

23. Where exactly is this buried truth? Every single person has spoke to the 0.2 increase and its reason

You are just regurgitating empty talking points.

[Octafish]

27. Sorry if you read it that way. The unreccs serve to bury the truth of the story.

When a story has 5 recs, it gets put on a special page. Some on DU work to bury those posts and articles.

[phleshdef]

28. Nothing is being buried. NO ONE has failed to recognize the increase.

How can you claim something that all the associated discussions have included to be "buried"?

Counting the unrecs on a message board is a pretty piss poor way to measure the "burying of the truth".

[Octafish]

31. It isn't when unreccs keep things from being seen by other people.

That would be burying the truth.

[Echo In Light]

30. The 'official' claim is to keep fluff away, but it's actually code re unwanted 'loony' left views

[Octafish]

32. Weird that some think that way...

...DU started out because of the theft of the 2000 election.

Guess that kind of thinking would go against the grain these days.

[HughMoran]

19. It's tough to always look for the bad news

...in a pretty upbeat news article. It's a good thing that people who were out of the workforce now feel that it's worth it to look - and +300,000 jobs is continuing a positive trend.

[SidDithers]

20. Unrec...

the fact that jobs were created, and that more people are returning to looking for work, is a sign of improvement.

Puke all you want, but AP got the story right.

Sid

[amborin]

22. K&R

no amount of rosy press releases can hide the dismal facts

[tritsofme]

24. I'm not exactly sure what you are disputing here. The UE increase was essentially a good thing.

It didn't increase because more people are losing their jobs, it ticked up because discouraged workers who had completely given up looking for work have rejoined the labor force, giving the appearance of higher unemployment.

I have been saying for months that the UE rate will not go down until it first comes up a bit.

[upi402]

25. Long term unemployed is up to 46%

Long term unemployed, > 6 mo. is up to 46% of these job-seekers. This just doesn't happen. But don't worry, be happy. Move along, nothing to see here.

Hope... change... blah blah blah
To be painfully clear: I am critiquing the spin of the article. That jobs are being created while the are actually declining as reality comes into play finally.