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So, the economy is turning around...(unemployment below 8%)


magley64

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http://news.yahoo.com/us-jobless-rate-falls-7-8-pct-44-123110986--finance.html

Now what does Rmoney have?

"oh, but it's not really....errr...I mean... it... it should be better...."

sorry boss, growing a stable economy from the greatest freefall bubble bust of our time takes some time to grow... and it continues to grow.

now you could put in place policy that gives us another boom/bust cycle, but who does that help? (rich people)

Edited by magley64
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If the number of unemployed dropped by 456,000, but only 114,000 jobs were added, that means that 342,000 people left the workforce in some fashion. Couple that with the fact that the number of part-time workers saw an increase of 582,000 while manufacturing unemployment saw a decrease of 16,000 jobs and this drop in unemployment rate begins to looks less and less optimistic, and more like a misleading mathematical equation.

In 2012, employment growth has averaged a gain of 146,000 jobs per month, a drop from the average monthly gain of 153,000 in 2011. Given these numbers, the 114,000 jobs added in September begin to look worse and worse, regardless of what the often-misleading unemployment rate says.

The much more telling U-6 unemployment rate, which accounts for unemployment, underemployment, and those marginally attached to the workforce, remained the same at 14.7 percent. That 7.8 percent number does not include so many factors and does not tell the whole story. For instance, if a worker should be employed full time but could only find part time work in September, they helped the “unemployment rate” decrease from 8.1 to 7.8 percent, but they would not have changed the U-6 number at 14.7 percent.

http://www.ijreview.com/2012/10/18256-breaking-september-jobs-report-released/

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I'm not impressed when two-thirds of the "new jobs" are low paid part-time workers.

It is quite correct that we have a long way to go for a recovery.

edit: btw, the number of students in Ohio 2-year colleges collapsed this fall by around 15%.

Not really known why yet. Back to work? Gave up? Can't afford it? No one knows.

Edited by ReconRat
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Unemployment often drops in late Summer, and especially election years. Something I've wondered about, is what effect hiring a bunch of part time poll takers would have. I crunched numbers, and about 0.0015% of the population would account for the difference in employment numbers. So on my campus of 3000 students, that would maybe be 4 poll takers. And that's what I generally see. The problem with that, is the unemployment numbers are for a previous month. So the poll takers would have to have been hired back then. Still possible, because there are a lot of different polling companies getting setup and hiring at the time.

We live in a weird world, where the action of taking a poll can actually effect the outcome of the polling...

edit: Even stranger thought. If I were a poll taker, and called 3000 people on the phone, 4 of them could be poll takers. I am amused...

Edited by ReconRat
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lol, we have 50% employees missing in my group at work. We won't hire until the economy changes AND the issues with health care settle down. Not happening. And we have a pay freeze, until further notice. And our health care is going up, again...

So I haven't seen any changes yet.

More or less just waiting for something else to go wrong...

edit: And we stopped hiring full time employees where possible, in favor of only part time employees, because of the health care costs and predicted changes.

Edited by ReconRat
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Not my data, bureau of labor statistics data...

Taken in the exact same fashion it's always been taken...

No shit its not "your" data. Sorry, should have said the data you were referring to. That would have been more clear for you.

And no, its not. Those numbers have been tweaked and twisted quite a bit.

lol, we have 50% employees missing in my group at work. We won't hire until the economy changes AND the issues with health care settle down. Not happening. And we have a pay freeze, until further notice. And our health care is going up, again...

So I haven't seen any changes yet.

More or less just waiting for something else to go wrong...

edit: And we stopped hiring full time employees where possible, in favor of only part time employees, because of the health care costs and predicted changes.

But magz says unemployment is going down. That doesn't make sense recon. And healthcare reform will not raise prices!

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First of all, Jack Welch is a dick. That's unrelated, though.

Unemployment is going down. The unemployment data provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics isn't just the number of people applying for unemployment. it's also based on polls of Americans, so those who are no longer collecting unemployment, but who are not back to work, are also sampled and included in the data.

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First of all, Jack Welch is a dick. That's unrelated, though.

Unemployment is going down. The unemployment data provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics isn't just the number of people applying for unemployment. it's also based on polls of Americans, so those who are no longer collecting unemployment, but who are not back to work, are also sampled and included in the data.

U-6 Says it hasn't changed.

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Some of you do realize that just a lot of the jobs lost at your personal places of employment aren't ever being replaced right? But there are other new industries that are creating jobs that have never existed before.

The whole "winds of change" thing. I'm sure it was all doom and gloom at the typewriter factories when word processors came out too.

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Some of you do realize that just a lot of the jobs lost at your personal places of employment aren't ever being replaced right? But there are other new industries that are creating jobs that have never existed before.

The whole "winds of change" thing. I'm sure it was all doom and gloom at the typewriter factories when word processors came out too.

Oh yes, the entire field of computer technology is now obsolete. Thanks.

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Well, when you're working on Lotus Notes 1-2-3... it is. Or insert your own examples here if the Lotus Notes is a bad example (Netscape, Prodigy, MS Zune, BASIC programming, etc)

Some of those people have skills that transfer to the same industry, some don't and will have to learn new skills or use those skills to develop something completely transformational in this economy. Either way, there's only sooo many people that Apple needs to crank out iPods and if you're a competitor working on a similar product and iPod crushes you, it's not like Apple is going to need all the programmers that worked on the Zune to come over and help with more iPods.

Point being, as I said, stories of people you've personally observed being laid off may be net neutral in regards to unemployment when other jobs are created in other sectors. But, those laid off in one industry many NEVER see their skills be utilized again as society and technologies progress.

Edited by JRMMiii
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Blow molding is a good business, outsourcing is unlikely since it costs too much to ship air...

Wrong answer! I know about this first-hand! The company that I used to work for was shipping large parts across the country to another factory that assembled the products at a cheaper labor rate, not to mention when the Mexico operation started up.

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Even though it's related to unemployment (for obvious reasons) -- outsourcing is a different discussion altogether.

Assuming quality factors are equal, outsourcing is very sensitive to shipping costs, volumes, and labor rates. When doing LCC sourcing, the US will sometimes be favorable given the logistics (like Magz said) if you're running a JIT manufacturing situation. Some companies don't mind holding inventory or forcing the supplier to do consignment using a local warehouse, so when it takes 8 weeks on a slow boat from China, not a problem.

Deciding to outsource is basically a gamble that volumes will increases, shipping will decrease, labor will remain relatively flat. And unless the cost of energy starts decreasing -- that's a poor gamble. So, as the higher fuel prices continue, the contracts with suppliers will be reevaluated as fuel futures begin to run out and it'll eventually bring more jobs back to the US.

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Bullshit. No one is buying anything because the population has inadequate or nonexistent income and debt they can't handle. Ask China, they know this very well. The USA isn't spending anywhere near what it used to. Consider yourself lucky if you've got a decent full time job.

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U-6 Says it hasn't changed.

Unmanipulated U-6 data does, in fact, show a decrease. Either way, both unadjusted and seasonally adjusted numbers show significant decrease over the last year. Keep in mind, too, that U-6 contains the official unemployment rate, with the addition of part time employees who are part time because they can't find a full time job, people who are self-employed, and people who want to be self employed.

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U6 January 2009,14.2%

U6 September 2012, 14.7%

U3, January 2009 and September 2012, 7.8%

So what does that tell us? That there are more people unemployed? Nope. That there are more people working part-time jobs? Maybe, but there's no way to know for sure. That there are more people who have full time jobs, but want to be self-employed? Possibly. That there are more people who are in fact self-employed. Perhaps. This is why U-6 is meaningless as an economic indicator, and is purely used for political purposes.

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