by Don Lee
The nation's unemployment rate held steady in February at 9.7 percent, the government said today, and employer payrolls dropped by a net 36,000 last month, although most if not all of the decline was seen as due to temporary work stoppages stemming from the blizzards on the East Coast.
The latest snapshot of the economy, though harder to interpret because of the influence of the weather, was generally consistent with a slowly improving job market in which layoffs have fallen sharply but vigorous hiring remains elusive.
Economists on average were expecting net job losses of about 50,000 in February. Without the effects of the weather, some analysts said, the economy probably would have added about 25,000 to their payrolls last month. The nation lost 26,000 jobs in January and 109,000 positions in December, when the unemployment rate was 10 percent.
The payroll jobs data are derived from a survey of employers and are seasonally adjusted, but those statistical adjustments are based on past average fluctuations, and last month's snow storms along the mid-Atlantic were hardly normal, shutting down many businesses, schools and transportation routes. The biggest effect was most likely borne by the construction industry, which dropped 64,000 jobs last month.
There were some hopeful signs as well: Manufacturers added a tiny 1,000 jobs last month after a 20,000 increase in January, the first upturn after factory payrolls plunged by more than two million during the last two years of the deep recession. The temporary-help industry, widely seen as a harbinger of broader hiring, expanded by another 48,000 jobs in February, bringing to 285,000 the number added since September.
Weather wasn't likely a major factor in the Labor Department's unemployment report, which is based on a national survey of households that counts as employed those who have jobs but say they missed work because of weather factors, even if they were unpaid.
This survey, which counts self-employed and other non-payroll workers such as family-paid employees, showed 308,000 more people working in February than the previous month. Even so, the labor market remains under severe strain.
The number of officially unemployed remained at nearly 15 million, with four in ten, or 6.1 million people, having been out of work for six months or longer. And the Labor Department's broader measure of unemployment and underemployment, which includes part-time workers who want full-time jobs, rose to 16.8 percent last month from 16.5 percent in January.
Comments
36,000 more jobs lost in February.
26,000 in January.
109,000 in December.
Remember all those promises last year on how the "stimulus" would create jobs?
Posted by: Equal time | March 5, 2010 9:34 AM
panty waist-- 9.7%
Bush-- 4.7%
Hmmmmm?
Paulo
Posted by: Paulo | March 5, 2010 9:35 AM
The unemployment rate is stuck at 9.7%, and this is somehow a good thing??? After over a TRILLION dollars of combined stimulus and omnibus pork spending, this is the best we can do? Wow, if the markets rally on news like this, we're in deep trouble. Can you say "irrational exuberance?" Time to move out of equities and into cash before recent history repeats itself.
Posted by: joker | March 5, 2010 10:41 AM
Blaming a snowstorm for unemployment? Now that's even a new low for this administration.
Posted by: What A Joke | March 5, 2010 12:02 PM
Contrary to the mindset of the Obama sheeple, not one dollar of US tax dollar "Stimulus" funds have made a long term effect on employment or the labor market.
In fact, when takning into consideration the long term cost of all the borrowed money tossed about as political favors and bribes for votes, the Obama administration will be known for it's devistation to the US Economy.
Now that's not the History this fellow promised but then, not one of his promises have come to fruition as cost saving or cost neutral.
Posted by: springfield | March 5, 2010 12:16 PM
THANKS HARRY, FOR THE UPDATE!!!!
Harry Reid: "Only" 36,000 Lost Their Jobs Today
*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC211h9AY-4
Posted by: Bobby Mobbie | March 5, 2010 12:37 PM
More fire, shacking, and rolling. Life is coming to an end...fear will rule again soon.
Posted by: bill r. | March 5, 2010 12:56 PM
We need to pass the stimulus
right now! Oh boy, we better not wait or it will be too late!
Now some sheeple will say look at all the money the Tarp money the banks got! Well, that money is getting paid back. Who is going to pay back this money?
I'll give you one guess, look in the mirror & think plus interest!
Posted by: wingnut master | March 5, 2010 5:25 PM
Billy,
Fear is a step up from the current stupidity that is running DC.
See the attached link for the graph of the last 50 years of being unemployed for over 26 weeks. Now here is a "hockey stick" chart that is based on facts.
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2010/03/employment-population-ratio-part-time.html
Posted by: Terry | March 5, 2010 7:18 PM
So where do you all think unemployment would be if the stimulus hadn't been passed? Do you all seriously think all this happened in the last year? You conveniently forget all the missteps of the previous administration which led to this. How many jobs were lost to overseas locations because companies were given tax breaks to do so? It has been proven over and over that we would have been in much, much worse shape if the stimulus had not passed.
And as far as creating jobs? Look no further than your golden boy Eric Cantor. He voted against the stimulus -- of course -- and then bragged that a stimulus-funded project in his state would create anywhere from 85,000 to 160,000 jobs. There is a long, long list of Republican hypocrites who voted against the stimulus and then lined up begging for funds.
Posted by: SouthSideD | March 5, 2010 7:53 PM
Bill, do expound a bit will you? It reads as a little criptic. As I've said for 2 years now or so, we are in another great depression and the second crash is comming.....wingnuts, grab your tinfoil.....pugs, grab your money.....dems, grab your guns! Oh, and Inky, grab yourself! I sorta miss the pug kid....ahhhh, but we got bobi mommy now.
Posted by: Xcellentform | March 5, 2010 7:57 PM
SouthSide,
Let's see what BO's top economic advisor said where we would be w/o the Stimulus. The light-blue line is w/o the Stimulus. The red dots are with the stimulus.
http://michaelscomments.wordpress.com/2009/11/06/october-job-losses-accelerate-again-10-2/
The only thing the Stimulus has done is add another $800 billion to the national debt.
Posted by: Terry | March 5, 2010 8:54 PM
The National Unemployment rate may be 9.7% but the unemployment rate in the Energy Sector is closer to 97%. No one there operates on uncertainty. democrats have pretty much won their war on energy.
Posted by: Django - N Exile In/Around the 30th Parallel | March 6, 2010 4:03 AM
SouthSide,
Let's see what BO's top economic advisor said where we would be w/o the Stimulus. The light-blue line is w/o the Stimulus. The red dots are with the stimulus.
http://michaelscomments.wordpress.com/2009/11/06/october-job-losses-accelerate-again-10-2/
…
Posted by: Terry | March 5, 2010 8:54 PM
--------------------
Forget the first graph. Look at the second graph. That curve (line) has serious NEGATIVE slope. If you were to think about projecting that bad boy out, have a 2nd thought and think about something else. Even the Koolaid drinkers will have to get some sobriety and take notice is this trend were to continue much longer.
Surely there would have to be an inflection point somewhere along the way, because surely the Union people are not going to be thrown out of work too.
What was I thinking? A completely shut-down, non-operating factory probably will not let people still come in to work and collect a pay check. How fast will it take to destroy 138 million jobs? I guess that would be the better question. This movee just doesn’t have a very good plot, at all.
Posted by: Django - N Exile In/Around the 30th Parallel | March 6, 2010 2:47 PM
Financial advisors always tell their clients to "diversify" their investments. In the U.S., our economy is no longer diversified. Rather, it has moved from an ecomony where industry and service were roughly equal in number of employed persons to where is is now well over 70% service. In the last 25 years, more than 10 million industrial jobs were sent overseas (both dems & reps resonsible for allowing this). Until the majority of those lost jobs are retrurned to the U.S., our economy will continue to stumble along as it now is. Stimulus spending creates temporary jobs for a year or two at most, and does nothing to rebuild the industrial base needed to re-energize the economy. Now, rather than blast each other as "democraps" or "republithugs", why don't we try discussing how to get these jobs back.
Posted by: dlk | March 6, 2010 4:07 PM
Who was it that said do what I want an unemployment would not rise above 8%? In Illinois unemployment stands at 12.6% in February 2009 it was at 6.4%. And the real unemployment rate for the US still stands at 17.3%.
Posted by: Crooks_In_DC | March 11, 2010 7:25 PM