worldwide+Recession+MW

=The Recession=

Private job growth in the last three months was stronger than initially estimated, the government said Friday in its August report on unemployment.

Multimedia
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
 * [|Jobs]
 * [|Private]
 * [|Rate]

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[|Economix Blog: Comparing This Recession to Previous Ones: Job Changes] (September 3, 2010) ======

Still, the economy lost another 54,000 jobs overall last month, mostly because of the loss of temporary [|Census Bureau] jobs, and the unemployment rate rose to 9.6 percent from 9.5 percent. Private companies however added 67,000 jobs in August, the Labor Department said, more than the 41,000 economists had forecast. In July, the private sector growth was revised to 107,000 jobs, up than 71,000, and the June number was revised upward to 61,000 in June from 31,000. Private companies have now added jobs in 9 of the last 10 months. Over all, government payrolls declined by 121,000 jobs in August. State and local governments, many of them grappling with severe budget deficits, cut 1o,000 jobs, and another 114,000 temporary Census positions came to an end. The numbers for previous months were also revised to show an overall loss of 175,000 jobs in June rather than 221,000; and a loss of 54,000 in July, instead of 131,000. The report, although better than expected, was “not nearly enough to meaningfully impact the unemployment rate nor keep up with the growth in the labor market,” Dan Greenhaus, the chief economic strategist for Miller Tabak & Company, said. “For the last three months we have added 235,000 private sector jobs. This is a modest recovery associated with modest growth in payrolls,” Mr. Greenhaus said. “The unfortunate reality is that following financial crisis-induced recessions, recoveries tend to be quite modest and quite prolonged.” [|President Obama] on Friday called the better-than-expected jobs report “positive news,” but said it was not good enough to pull the economy out of its slump. Mr. Obama [|said that he planned] to unveil a “package of ideas” next week to shore up the flagging economy. He did not offer specifics about what ideas he is considering, though he has said repeatedly that he wants to extend middle class tax cuts and promote new investment in clean energy. Once again, he called for Congress to pass a stalled bill that would offer tax breaks to small businesses and create a $30 billion loan program to encourage community banks to lend. “We are confident that we are moving in the right direction,” Mr. Obama said, but we want to keep this recovery moving stronger and accelerate the job growth that’s needed so desperately across the country.” His options are limited given that Congress has shown little appetite for more spending before the midterm elections in November, in which Republicans are hoping to reclaim both the Senate and the House. Republicans have said that the unemployment rate remains high because the president’s stimulus spending as well as his overhauls of health care and the financial industry are a drag on the recovery. While[| the report] continued to show that the pace of the recovery remains slow, it provided some reassurance the economy would not slip into a double-dip [|recession]. Last week, the Commerce Department revised its estimate for growth in the second quarter down [|to an annual rate of 1.6 percent], from 2.4 percent. The consensus on the outlook for the second half of the year is growth of 1.5 to 2.5 percent, substantially less than what is needed for the recovery to pick up steam. Earlier this week, [|the Conference Board] released a monthly survey showing that[| consumer confidence improved slightly] in August but indicated that Americans remained apprehensive about the economy and the job market. Other indicators showed that the housing market clearly slowed over the summer and that retail sales were weak in August. The crux of the problem is circular, economists said: consumer demand needs to pick up, but that is largely dependent on whether people have jobs. And while corporate profits were generally robust in the second quarter, many companies had trimmed costs and jobs to achieve them. For sustained growth, economists say businesses need actual revenue growth rather than earnings that rise because of cutting costs. Corporate outlooks for the rest of the year have been tepid. The report said employment in health care increased the most, adding 28,000 jobs in August. The industry has added an average of 20,000 jobs a month in 2010, about in line with the average monthly job growth in 2009, the department said. Construction employment rose in August by 19,000 jobs, but this was partly because 10,000 of those workers returned to work after a strike in July, the department said.