From The Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation Summary
…Nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline in August (-216,000), and the unemployment rate rose to 9.7 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Although job losses continued in many of the major industry sectors in August, the declines have moderated in recent months.
Household Survey Data
In August, the number of unemployed persons increased by 466,000 to 14.9 million, and the unemployment rate rose by 0.3 percentage point to 9.7 percent. The rate had been little changed in June and July, after in-creasing 0.4 or 0.5 percentage point in each month from December 2008 through May. Since the recession began in December 2007, the number of unemployed persons has risen by 7.4 million, and the unemployment rate has grown by 4.8 percentage points.
Calculated Risk adds
For the current recession, employment peaked in December 2007, and this recession was a slow starter (in terms of job losses and declines in GDP).
However job losses have really picked up over the last year, and the current recession is now the 2nd worst recession since WWII in percentage terms (and the 1948 recession recovered very quickly) – and also in terms of the unemployment rate (only early ’80s recession was worse).
The economy is still losing jobs at about a 2.6 million annual rate, and the unemployment rate will probably be above 10% soon. This is still a weak employment report – just not as bad as earlier this year.
Mish adds
The official unemployment rate is 9.7% and rising. However, if you start counting all the people that want a job but gave up, all the people with part-time jobs that want a full-time job, all the people who dropped off the unemployment rolls because their unemployment benefits ran out, etc., you get a closer picture of what the unemployment rate is. That number is in the last row labeled U-6.
It reflects how unemployment feels to the average Joe on the street. U-6 is 16.8%. Both U-6 and U-3 (the so called “official” unemployment number) are poised to rise further although most likely at a slower pace than earlier this year.
Looking ahead, there is no driver for jobs and states in forced cutback mode are making matters far worse.
