Friday, December 02, 2011
Dissecting the unemployment report
A closer look at this morning's unemployment report. Long term, the sustained monthly declines in government employment are good for the economy. The problem is that they will come back when the economy improves, because make-work and no-work jobs are a great way for local politicians to buy votes.
4 Comments:
By 
, at
Sat Dec 03, 11:19:00 AM:
Analysts were saying all day yesterday that the report seems like a bit of electioneering (combined, seasonal adjustments and assumed retirements from the workforce are responsible for the improvement), and even though the less-than-expected jobs growth came mainly from low paying, temporary retail jobs.
I really don't care! A little bit of good news for the long term unemployed, however temporary a respite, at this time of year especially, is reason for celebration. So, yippeee!
May we see many more such reports next year.
By , at
Sat Dec 03, 11:26:00 AM:
I wish we could get into General Motors and see how many "...make-work and no-work jobs..." have been created since the company was stolen from it's owners and given to the IAM.
By , at
Sat Dec 03, 11:55:00 AM:
Unemployment went down in large part because the "participation rate" went down.
"Jobs per total population" is harder to fudge -- it went up a bit but has been essentially flat since early 2009.
The elephant in the room is that this has been going on while the Feds have been pumping in over a trillion a year in excess demand. Normslly this would redline GDP growth to Chinese levels, and drive down unemployment to low single digits.
I'm not totally negative. There are bright spots but they're localized to certain states, and aren't national.
By , at
Sat Dec 03, 12:18:00 PM:
Why are they good for the economy over the long term? It seems utterly absurd to say that without mentioning anything about what these jobs are and what they might do.
