Unemployment: And the good news is ….
We added jobs last month. In fact, according to Reuters we added more to US nonfarm payrolls than we have in 4 years.
290,000 jobs were added in April (66,000 government and the rest private sector).  What this points to is a number that is higher than that which is necessary to keep the unemployment percentage stable (around 140,000 a month) because of the natural turbulence within the jobs market.
On the other hand, with some adjustments, the unemployment rate itself went up .02 percentage points to 9.9% (Reuters mistakenly claims it stayed at 9.7%).
Now this is unquestionably good news. However, given that 8.2 million jobs have been lost in the recession, a few thousand a month increase isn’t going to change the unemployment rate drastically any time soon. Most see that rate coming down very slowly over years. And, as the bad news in Europe continues to grow and markets for American goods there decline, it is entirely possible that it will flatten out again or even spike a bit before it heads back down.
~McQ
Also read something strange about these emp. numbers here (consider the source?):
290K of which census was 66k and Birth Death was 188k. Hurray -the economy added a real 36k in jobs in April. Still, we are curious how the Chairman will not be forced to discuss tightening after this B/D adjustment inspired number (188K in April B/D, 81K in March). And in the meantime, headlines will read Unemployment back to 9.9%, and Underemployment back to 17.1%. Record jittery market bounces than calms down again.
A little statistical shuffling and massaging going on? Thoughts?
Wow. That comment appeared exactly as the opposite of what I thought I stylized. Oh well.
Shadow Stats shows unemployment back up to 22% after a brief drop to 21.2%.
http://www.shadowstats.com/
Â
Â
Wait for the revisions next month….
http://sweetness-light.com/archive/jobs-are-up-but-jobless-goes-to-9-9
They will vary by at least a third, depending on what the Obami are trying to sell as “truth.”