Friday, October 8, 2010

U.S. unemployment 9.6 % Sept.2010 Net jobs lost 95,000

October 8, 2010

The U.S. Bureau of Labour Statistics has released the September numbers for unemployment and job loss and they are not very encouraging. Unemployment remains stuck at 9.6 %. This appears to be so because in September despite an additional 64,000 jobs created in the private sector the government sector lost 159,000 jobs due to 77,000 census workers being laid off after the completion of the census and some  76,000 job losses at the local  government level.

The reluctance of   private employers to invest in the economic recovery and hire workers continues and there is a clear lack of thoughtful co-ordination of employment policy at the governmental level to prevent census and local government layoffs from undermining recovery. There needs to be a second round of stimulus sharply focused on direct job creation.The remaining funds  from the first round and they are substantial need to brought to bear on the problem as quickly as possible.
There is talk of a second possible round of quantitative easing by the Fed. But on its own it cannot accomplish that much other than keep interest rates low.  It needs to be accompanied by additional targeted fiscal stimulus to get the job of accelerating recovery and lowering the unemployment rate done more quickly. the U.S. needs to create more than 200,000 additional jobs each month just to absorb new entrants to the labour force.

Here is the summary of the data released by the Bureau courtesy of them.



Employment Situation Summary

Transmission of material in this release is embargoed            USDL-10-1393
until 8:30 a.m. (EDT) Friday, October 8, 2010

Technical information:
 Household data:       (202) 691-6378  *  cpsinfo@bls.gov  *  www.bls.gov/cps
 Establishment data:   (202) 691-6555  *  cesinfo@bls.gov  *  www.bls.gov/ces

Media contact:         (202) 691-5902  *  PressOffice@bls.gov


                        THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION -- SEPTEMBER 2010


Nonfarm payroll employment edged down (-95,000) in September, and the unem-
ployment rate was unchanged at 9.6 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Sta-
tistics reported today. Government employment declined (-159,000), reflec-
ting both a drop in the number of temporary jobs for Census 2010 and job 
losses in local government. Private-sector payroll employment continued 
to trend up modestly (+64,000).

Household Survey Data

The number of unemployed persons, at 14.8 million, was essentially un-
changed in September, and the unemployment rate held at 9.6 percent. (See 
table A-1.)

Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for adult men (9.8 
percent), adult women (8.0 percent), teenagers (26.0 percent), whites 
(8.7 percent), blacks (16.1 percent), and Hispanics (12.4 percent) showed 
little or no change in September. The jobless rate for Asians was 6.4 
percent, not seasonally adjusted. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.)

The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over), 
at 6.1 million, was little changed over the month but was down by 640,000 
since a series high of 6.8 million in May. In September, 41.7 percent 
of unemployed persons had been jobless for 27 weeks or more. (See table 
A-12.)

In September, both the civilian labor force participation rate, at 64.7 
percent, and the employment-population ratio, at 58.5 percent, were un-
changed. (See table A-1.)

The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes 
referred to as involuntary part-time workers) rose by 612,000 over the 
month to 9.5 million. Over the past 2 months, the number of such workers 
has increased by 943,000. These individuals were working part time be-
cause their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find 
a full-time job. (See table A-8.)

About 2.5 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force 
in September, up from 2.2 million a year earlier. (The data are not sea-
sonally adjusted.) These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted 
and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the 
prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had 
not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. (See table 
A-16.)

Among the marginally attached, there were 1.2 million discouraged work-
ers in September, an increase of 503,000 from a year earlier. (The data 
are not seasonally adjusted.) Discouraged workers are persons not cur-
rently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for 
them. The remaining 1.3 million persons marginally attached to the labor 
force had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey 
for reasons such as school attendance or family responsibilities. (See 
table A-16.)

Establishment Survey Data

Total nonfarm payroll employment edged down by 95,000 in September.
Government employment fell by 159,000, reflecting both the departure
of 77,000 temporary Census 2010 workers from federal government pay-
rolls and a decline of 76,000 in local government employment. Private-
sector payroll employment continued to trend up (+64,000) over the 
month. (See table B-1.)

Health care employment rose by 24,000 in September. The increase was
concentrated in ambulatory health care services (+17,000). Health care
employment has risen by an average of 21,000 per month this year.

Within professional and business services, employment services added
28,000 jobs in September. Temporary help services accounted for most
of the gain.

Within leisure and hospitality, employment in food services and drink-
ing places increased by 34,000 over the month and has risen by 104,000 
thus far in 2010.

Mining employment continued to trend up (+6,000) over the month. Mining 
has added 77,000 jobs since a recent low in October 2009.

Employment in manufacturing changed little in September and, on net, has 
been essentially flat since May. The industry added 134,000 jobs during 
the first 5 months of the year.

Employment in wholesale trade, retail trade, transportation and ware-
housing, information, and financial activities showed little change in 
September.

Employment in construction edged down (-21,000) over the month, partly
offsetting an employment gain in August. Both the August and September
changes were concentrated among nonresidential specialty trade contrac-
tors. Construction employment has shown little net change since February.

Government employment fell by 159,000 in September. A decline in federal 
government employment was due to the loss of 77,000 temporary Census 2010 
jobs. As of September, about 6,000 temporary decennial census workers re-
mained on the federal government payroll, down from a peak of 564,000 in 
May. Employment in local government decreased by 76,000 in September with 
job losses in both education and noneducation.

In September, the average workweek for all employees was unchanged at 34.2 
hours. The manufacturing workweek for all employees decreased by 0.1 hour 
to 40.1 hours, and factory overtime was unchanged at 3.0 hours. The aver-
age workweek for production and nonsupervisory employees on private non-
farm payrolls was unchanged at 33.5 hours. (See tables B-2 and B-7.)

Average hourly earnings of all employees on private nonfarm payrolls in-
creased by 1 cent to $22.67 in September. Over the past 12 months, aver-
age hourly earnings have increased by 1.7 percent. In September, average 
hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employ-
ees increased by 1 cent to $19.10.  (See tables B-3 and B-8.) 

The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for July was revised from 
-54,000 to -66,000, and the change for August was revised from -54,000 to 
-57,000.


____________
The Employment Situation for October is scheduled to be released on
Friday, November 5, 2010, at 8:30 a.m. (EDT).



      -----------------------------------------------------------------------
     |                                                                       |
     |             Preliminary Estimates of Benchmark Revisions              |
     |                      to the Establishment Survey                      |
     |                                                                       |
     | In accordance with usual practice, the Bureau of Labor Statistics     |
     | is announcing its preliminary estimates of the upcoming annual bench- |
     | mark revision to the establishment survey employment series. The      |
     | final benchmark revision will be issued on February 4, 2011, with     |
     | the publication of the January 2011 Employment Situation news release.|
     |                                                                       |
     | Each year, the Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey employ-     |
     | ment estimates are benchmarked to comprehensive counts of employment  |
     | for the month of March derived from state unemployment insurance tax  |
     | records that nearly all employers are required to file. For national  |
     | CES employment series, the average of the absolute values of the      |
     | annual benchmark revisions over the last 10 years is 0.3 percent at   |
     | the total nonfarm level. The preliminary estimate of the benchmark    |
     | revision indicates a downward adjustment to March 2010 total nonfarm  |
     | employment of 366,000 (-0.3 percent).                                 |
     |                                                                       |
     | Table B shows the March 2010 preliminary benchmark revisions by       |
     | major industry sector. As is typically the case, many of the indivi-  |
     | dual industry series show larger percentage revisions than the total  |
     | nonfarm series, primarily because statistical sampling error is       |
     | greater at more detailed levels than at a total level.                |
     |                                                                       |
     |                                                                       |
     |                                                                       |
     | Table B. National Current Employment Statistics March 2010 prelimi-   |
     | nary benchmark revisions by major industry sector                     |
     | ----------------------------------------------------------------------|
     |                                 |                  |Percent benchmark |
     |             Industry            |Benchmark revision|     revision     |
     | --------------------------------|------------------|------------------|
     | Total nonfarm ..................|     -366,000     |       -0.3       |
     |   Total private ................|     -371,000     |        -.4       |
     |     Mining and logging..........|      -20,000     |       -3.0       |
     |     Construction ...............|      -62,000     |       -1.2       |
     |     Manufacturing ..............|     -114,000     |       -1.0       |
     |     Trade, transportation,      |                  |                  |
     |       and utilities ............|     -144,000     |        -.6       |
     |     Information ................|      -11,000     |        -.4       |
     |     Financial activities .......|       42,000     |         .6       |
     |     Professional and business   |                  |                  |
     |       services .................|       14,000     |         .1       |
     |     Education and health        |                  |                  |
     |       services .................|        6,000     |        (1)       |
     |     Leisure and hospitality.....|      -91,000     |        -.7       |
     |     Other services .............|        9,000     |         .2       |
     |   Government ...................|        5,000     |        (1)       |
      -----------------------------------------------------------------------
       (1) Less than 0.05 percent.

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