Jobs: 3 Reasons To Worry
The September employment report showed that the US economy lost 95,000 non-farm jobs last month and the unemployment rate remained at 9.6 percent. Not to be a Debbie-Downer, but that headline doesn't speak to the three most worrisome parts of the report.
Here's what caught my attention:
- Part-timers on the rise: +612,000 over the month to 9.5 million, a new record high. These are people who are working part-time because their hours have been reduced or were unable to find full-time work. The recent trend here is worrisome--over the past two months, this category has increased by 943,000.
- Broad unemployment rate (U-6): 17.1 percent from 16.7 percent in August. This category includes the above-mentioned part-timers, as well as those who are "marginally attached". The high reading for this rate was 17.4 percent in October, 2009. That's not too much progress over the course of a year.
- Long-term unemployed (unemployed for 27 weeks and over): 6.123 million, or 4 percent of the civilian workforce. The BLS pointed out that the number was little changed from the prior month and down by 640,000 since the series high of 6.8 million in May, 2010. Take a step back and consider this: 41.7 percent of unemployed have been jobless for 27 weeks or more. My guess is that the declining number may indicate that a large number of unemployed have simply given up their fruitless job searches.
Bottom line: the jobs situation will remain a thorn a side in the US economy for the foreseeable future--probably right through next year.
Image by Flickr User DorkyMum, CC 2.0
