Buried in Friday’s Bureau of Labor Statistics report on the country’s unemployment situation was this disheartening fact: 9,000 employees of the mining and resource extraction sector lost their jobs in October. That brings total job losses in that sector to 17,000 since May, according to BLS. The Bureau, which is …
The October jobs report essentially agrees with the rest of the current data on the economy—the economy is growing slowly, too slowly to bring down unemployment rapidly. In fact, the unemployment rate rose to 7.9 percent in October and the economy created about 171,000 jobs, roughly equal to the usual …
What’s behind the seemingly sudden drop in the unemployment rate? While the economy stumbles along, no one would expect a sudden jump in employment. Job growth has averaged about 100,000 per month over the past six months, roughly consistent with other economic indicators suggesting slow growth. But the Labor Department …
Job growth continues to sputter—this morning’s jobs report shows that 12.1 million Americans are still out of work. Going against other economic indicators, the unemployment rate dropped to 7.8 percent. Economists are already looking into the drop, saying it seems to be a statistical fluke, because it doesn’t match up …
Congress has headed off for its long vacation-and-campaign season, fleeing Washington as the unemployment rate rises. According to the Labor Department’s July jobs report, the unemployment rate ticked up to 8.3 percent, 12.8 million Americans are out of work, and 5.2 million have been out of work for at least …
Today’s jobs report is a broken record, with the unemployment rate stuck at 8.2 percent. The Department of Labor reports that only 80,000 jobs were added in June—consistent with other data revealing the economy has downshifted from slow to slower. This picture is starkly different from the economy President Obama …
