Report may show first monthly job gain in 2 years

[kpete]

Source: Associated Press


Report may show first monthly job gain in 2 years
December jobs report could show first monthly employment gain in 2 years, some economists say

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Some economists think the nation will break a 23-month streak of job cuts and add to employment when the government issues the December labor report Friday.

A majority of economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters still think the economy shed jobs in December -- a modest loss of 8,000. The unemployment rate is expected to rise to 10.1 percent from 10 percent.

Even a slight gain in jobs, should it happen, won't be enough to lower the unemployment rate anytime soon. Nor would it restore many of the estimated 8 million jobs lost during the recession.

The economy would need to generate more than 200,000 jobs a month to make a dent in the jobless rate, economists say. And even the bullish among them don't think that will happen until the second half of the year.

Read more: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Report-may-show-first-monthly-apf-2245189005.html?x=0

[truthisfreedom]

1. Or, it could be we've just hit a momentary stop in our slide down the hill...

And soon we'll be right up to the same momentum we had before, crunching our way into the valley below.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. I know some folks are invested in a crash

but all economic macro indicators tell us that things ARE getting better.

Hell this year there WAS overtime and people were hired by the Post Office for the December crunch. That did NOT happen last year.

[girl gone mad]

5. No need to make it personal.

Emergency unemployment claims rose by 43% in December. That is definitely not a positive macroeconomic indicator. What that says is that while the number of layoffs may be declining, the jobs are not coming back.

Other negative macroeconomic indicators include banks hoarding more cash than ever, with lending contracting more than 7% yoy, despite the trillions we've wasted propping them up. Rents are down 3%, with double digit vacancy rates in many cities (bring on the deflation). The number of TARP deadbeats is soaring, as is the number of banks on the "problem bank" list. Mortgage applications just hit a 12-year low, despite an ongoing massive government stimulus program. Commercial RE defaults are at a record.

That's all just off of the top of my head. Needless to say, we still haven't addressed the underlying causes of this crisis. We've merely papered over the cracks. As both Joseph Stiglitz and Simon Johnson stated yesterday, it's a question of when, not if, the next major crisis is going to occur.

[fasttense]

8. Girl keep pushing that reality, maybe it will sink in and wont catch

people unaware.

But really you summed up the real economy nicely. Despite what some people post here, we got the same kind of happy talk, when the bushes were in office. Remember the "jobless recovery"? It was thrown around here as often as on any free republic forum.

I wish things were improving, I need a job as much as the next guy. But pretending things are getting better when they are merely dampened off by stimulus money will not solve the problem.

But here is what keeps flashing in my mind every time someone posts happy talk propaganda:

"But for some reason, the “experts” keep ignoring the ongoing surge in emergency employment claims, which climbed above 5 million to a new record. In fact, despite all the attention being paid to the headline data, the real story is that the ranks of the long-term unemployed keep going up."

That and the 10 years of NO jobs creation.

[nadinbrzezinski]

15. Conflating is not going to help

look I know at the micro level things still stink, and at the macro levels things are not as good as they could be, but things are GETTING BETTER. I guess you do want oh January 20, of last year. Care to look at those stats? That was going straight to a crash.

As I said, some folks are invested in the second great depression.

Well this is not a capitalist system, it is a corporatist system.

That said, before you get POSITIVE job growth you need to slow down the decline...

Check.

Oh and all that stimulus money is CLASSIC keynesian economics... I know John Maynard Keynes was wrong in the 1930s as well.

Free clue to those who cannot get it, or will not get it... jobs are always LAGGING indicators. Another free clue, conflating current developments with the last decade of NON keynseian but free trade economics ain't gonna help.

Jeesus age, people do need some econ 101!!!!

[Purveyor]

3. The 'doom & gloomers' will shit!!! ;) eom

[Double T]

4. There will be no job gains in December AND the double dip will be here by mid-year.

Again NOTHING of real substance is or has been done to improve our economy long term or for the sustainable future. Expect manipulated numbers in all areas through the November 2010 elections.

[Better Today]

6. I hate it when predictive ideas are touted as news. It isn't news till the job reports

actually come out.

[Double T]

7. Thank you!

Crystal balls don't have the solutions to our crippled economy.

[Demeter]

9. There Is No Earthly Reason To Expect That

Those "economists" are simply staring at graphs, thinking that "the magic of the marketplace" will save them.

There will not be jobs growth because the mechanism for growth: increasing demand, increasing discretionary income; simply isn't there, and there's no mechanism to generate that demand and income, and what little stimulus there was is being withdrawn.

These delusional quacks shouldn't be employed, and they certainly shouldn't be issuing opinions.

[notesdev]

10. So much for Pollyanna

-85k

And remember, the number we need is not 0, it is +150k just to stay even with population growth.

[high density]

11. -85k in December, November revised to +4k

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Economy-sheds-85000-jobs-in-rb-3785494434.html

[notesdev]

12. Must have been some serious alchemy

to pull a positive number out of November. That'll last until the next revision.

I don't see how anyone expects the employment situation to get better when the core problem in the economy - a lawless, vampiric financial industry run wild - is WORSE than when this depression started.

[high density]

13. Yep. Wall St and companies demand infinite growth

Yet at the same time they don't want to pay anybody a decent wage to have the consumer-based economy which funds this growth. Then they bitch about how much the government spends to fill in the gap. These companies need to stop looking at a quarterly outlook and examine where they are in a decade, at least in the US market. This mentality of hoarding all of the wealth in the hands of a few with the rest of the money flowing offshore is obviously detrimental to both our country and long term corporate profits, but nobody seems to care.

[denem]

14. IT DIDNT. 85,000 more jobs lost.