Originally Posted by
Stray Gator
While I don't profess to be an economics expert, the numbers provided by the CNN article that headlines the 7.8% unemployment rate are somewhat puzzling to me. First, it reports that "a survey of U.S. households showed 873,000 more Americans had jobs compared to a month earlier." But then it reports that "[a] separate survey of employers, considered the key metric that Wall Street watches, showed businesses added 114,000 jobs in September. It marked a slowdown in hiring, after July and August were revised significantly higher." How could 873,000 more people have jobs if businesses only added 114,000 jobs?
Part of the explanation may lie in the subsequent statement that "[i]n the most recent household survey, the biggest hiring gains came in the form of 582,000 new part-time jobs in September. Part of that number can be explained by young workers, ages 16 to 24. The data show this age group saw a huge pickup in jobs in September, due almost entirely to seasonal adjustments by the Labor Department." Does that mean most of the 873,000 new jobs reported in the household survey, which constitutes the basis for the 7.8% unemployment rate, were part-time jobs of people under the age of 24 that are mainly a result of Labor Department adjustments?
Finally, the article concludes with the following:
Although the unemployment rate is right back to where it was when Obama entered office, the U.S. economy has still not recovered all the jobs lost before his inauguration.
Of the 8.8 million jobs cut during the recession, about 4.3 million have been added back. The Labor Department signaled last week that it may revise the job gains higher, but even so, the job market still has a long way to go before it's fully healed.
About 12.1 million people were unemployed in September, and 40% of them have been so for six months or more.
The so-called "underemployment rate," which includes people who are working part time for economic reasons, and those who have recently dropped out of the labor force, was 14.7% in September.
That part of the article indicates that the unemployment rate is "back to where it was" when President Obama took office, not lower. And while the article notes that government jobs grew in September, "[m]anufacturers cut 16,000 jobs -- the second month in a row they've slashed workers."
So when I read the entire article and try to digest all of the data, I find a bit confusing to determine the extent to which the employment situation is really improving.