US chops 131,000 jobs in July
Big demand for computer system designers
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The US Census giveth, and the winding down of the census taketh away.
If there is one lucky thing for President Obama, it is that the census occurred during an economic meltdown, allowing the US government to pump up jobs and mask some of the downturn in unemployment this year. But now the census and the $787bn Obama economic stimulus that preceded it in early 2009 are winding down, and the economy has to stand on its own two feet.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics, a unit of the Department of Labor, put out its monthly jobs report this morning, this one calculating the unemployment rate as July ended. According to the report, which you can see here, the US economy shed 131,000 jobs in July. And you can blame federal, state, and local governments. The US government shed 143,000 workers in July, mostly as census workers were tossed unceremoniously back into the stagnant labor pool; state and local governments cut another 59,000 workers.
On a brighter note, the private sector in the United States added 71,000 jobs in July, which is something of an indication that the "real" economy is getting a bit better. So far this year, the private sector has added 630,000 jobs. The manufacturing sector (which has plenty of major and minor IT players) added 36,000 jobs in July and 183,000 workers have been added to the payrolls among manufacturers since December 2009.
All told, there are 14.6 million people in the US who are unemployed (meaning they are looking for work and can't find it), and the unemployment rate is unchanged from the 9.5 per cent rate set in June.
In the quarter, computer and electronic products manufacturers added 4,000 jobs in July to a pool of just over 1.1 million workers. Within this group, computer and peripheral equipment makers added 1,700 workers, to 160,300, while communications equipment makers shed 5,000 jobs, to 121,700. Semiconductor and electronic components makers added 1,500 workers, to 368,600.
The BLS lumps movies, media, and publishing as well as telecom, data processing, and hosting services into a hairball it calls the information sector. Within this, telecommunications companies continued to cut people from the payrolls, slashing 6,700 workers in July, to a pool of 919,000. Data processing, hosting, and related services, another IT portion of the US economy, lost 700 jobs, to 245,400.
In the broader professional and business services sector, companies engaged in computer systems design and related services had 1.45 million employees as July ended, up an impressive 14,200 people. (Maybe we'll get better PCs and servers now? Yeah, right.)
Management and technical consulting services firms added 7,700 workers, to just 400 shy of one million workers. ®
COMMENTS
These numbers
These numbers are a measure of just one aspect of the economy. The factory I work at is loaded with work at this time and my hours have went from around 30 a week into overtime.
I also live in a small city and I noticed that the traffic during morning and evening rush hours has been heavy for a couple months now and also a lot of weekend traffic and that's a good sign since I'm positive this is very far from an isolated incidence of visible economic growth.
There's also the fact that the local stores in my town and surrounding towns parking lots are full where they were 1/2 empty if that much last year. I also realized for the past month I've had to wait in line for more than a minute at the grocery store because there are always a lot of people there and they're not just picking up a few things like last year but have full carts.
No matter what you hear on TV the economy is a lot better than a year ago and getting stronger very quickly.
This article has been written to hide the dire straights the US economy finds itself in.
True unemployment is indeed climbing. It is measured by the "official" unemployment numbers plus discouraged workers who have stopped looking for work. It also didn't mention the serious downgrade on the "official" numbers from the month before, and indication that when the current report is updated to reflect more accurate numbers next month, we will find the economy lost more than the 131,000 claimed. Another consideration is that the job creation rate is considerably below the rate at which the economy needs to add jobs to keep even with the increasing number of workers in the work force.
With the alignment of negative economic forces against the private sector that has been created by the current regime, a double dip recession is nearing certainty.
no double dip...
... says someone verbose. http://bit.ly/aT6CpD
Paris, coz she likes a double dip.
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