Concerns over U.S 'currency war' due to high debt

Unemployment at 10.1% in September

Obama thinks unemployment OK: “At least its not 12 or 13 or 15% (Lucky Us )

Uh-Oh… The president of change was off of his TelePrompter again today.

Barack Obama defended his record unemployment rate today telling an audience in Racine, Wisconsin: “Unemployment is at 9.6%. At least it’s not at 12, 13 or 15 percent.”

Well, that’s comforting… Considering he promised it wouldn’t rise above 8%.
 

Unemployment hits 9.7% first time since 1982

Sept. 4 (Bloomberg) -- The pace of U.S. job losses slowed in August while the unemployment rate reached a 26-year high, signaling the recovery from recession will be slow to develop.

Employers cut payrolls by 216,000, fewer than forecast, after a 276,000 drop in July, Labor Department data showed today in Washington. The jobless rate rose to 9.7 percent; the so- called underemployment rate -- which includes part-time workers who’d prefer a full-time position and people who want work but have given up looking -- reached a record 16.8 percent.

Today’s figures stoke concern that the recovery forecast to take hold in the second half of the year won’t prompt a turnaround in the job market until 2010. With the ranks of long- term unemployed nearing 5 million, workers are at risk of losing skills, making it even tougher for them to eventually find work.

“The economy is no longer detonating, but we are still losing jobs,” David Rosenberg, chief economist at Gluskin Sheff & Associates Inc. in Toronto, said in an interview with Bloomberg Radio. “It’s going to be a very tough environment for the consumer.”

The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index closed up 1.3 percent at 1,016.4. The yield on the benchmark 10-year note climbed to 3.44 percent at 4:32 p.m. in New York from 3.35 percent yesterday.

Geithner’s Judgment

Rising joblessness underscores Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s judgment this week that it’s “too early” to start exiting from the unprecedented stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing the economy.

AMR Corp. and Whirlpool Corp. are among the companies continuing to cut staff to lower costs and revive profits in the aftermath of the deepest recession since the 1930s.

“The labor market lags behind the rest of the economy, so we are first going to have to see positive GDP growth,” Christina Romer, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said in a Bloomberg Radio interview. While 9.7 percent unemployment is “a tragedy,” Romer noted that the pace of job losses has slowed from 741,000 in January.

Romer said the Obama administration’s $787 billion fiscal stimulus is working to boost growth and declined to comment on whether a second effort will be needed.

Bigger Losses

Revisions subtracted 49,000 from payroll figures previously reported for July and June. The drop for July is now calculated at 276,000, compared with the 247,000 previously reported.

Payrolls were forecast to fall 230,000 in August according to the median of 79 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. The jobless rate was projected to rise to 9.5 percent. Analysts in a monthly Bloomberg survey projected the jobless rate will reach 10 percent by early 2010 and average 9.8 percent next year.

The latest numbers brought total jobs lost since the recession began in December 2007 to 6.9 million, the biggest decline in any post-World War II economic slump.

Among the 14.9 million unemployed Americans in August, 4.99 million were out of work for more than 26 weeks. The percentage of jobless who weren’t classified as on temporary layoff rose to 53.9 percent, up from 39.1 percent a year ago.

Incomes Restrained

“Layoffs that we’re having are more structural and not cyclical, and that makes it more difficult to have a meaningful rebound in income growth, which is a key ingredient as I said for sustainable self re-enforcing expansion,” said Tony Crescenzi, a market strategist and portfolio manager at Pacific Investment Management Co., manager of the world’s biggest bond fund.

All major job categories recorded losses in August, with construction payrolls tumbling 65,000, factories cutting another 63,000 and retailers firing 10,000 people.

Whirlpool, the world’s largest appliance maker, is among those firms still eliminating positions. The Benton Harbor, Michigan-based company said Aug. 28 it will close its Evansville, Indiana, manufacturing plant, resulting in the elimination of 1,100 jobs.

Fort Worth, Texas-based American Airlines, a unit of AMR, said this week it will furlough 228 flight attendants and put 244 more on involuntary leave.

Federal Reserve officials had “particular” concern about the job market when they met Aug. 11-12, minutes of the gathering showed this week.

“Long-term unemployment and permanent separations continued to rise, suggesting possible problems of skill loss and a need for labor reallocation that could slow recovery in employment begins to expand,” the Fed said in the minutes released Sept. 2.

Fed Rate Changes

Federal Reserve policy makers waited at least a year after unemployment peaked before raising interest rates in the aftermath of the previous two recessions.

Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, credited with preventing a second depression in winning nomination by President Barack Obama for a second term last month, has overseen a $1.2 trillion expansion of the central bank’s balance sheet to combat the credit crisis.

Today’s report also showed the average work week held at 33.1 hours in August. Average weekly hours worked by production workers remained unchanged from the month before, at 39.8 hours, while overtime also held at 2.9 hours. That brought the average weekly earnings up to $617.32 from $615.33.

Hours, Shifts

“We’re still going to see some months of job cuts,” said Brian Bethune, chief financial economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts. “There is a whole range of options, like adding shifts or hours, that companies can put in place until it becomes necessary to hire people back.”

Workers’ average hourly wages rose 6 cents, or 0.3 percent, to $18.65 from the prior month. Hourly earnings were 2.6 percent higher than August 2008. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg had forecast a 0.1 percent increase from the prior month and a 2.2 percent gain for the 12-month period.

The U.S. recession “is bottoming out” and the economy is poised for “a slow return,” Alcoa Inc. Chief Executive Officer Klaus Kleinfeld said in a Sept. 2 interview. The head of the largest U.S. aluminum producer said government stimulus in the U.S. and China will affect the New York-based company’s earnings “positively” this year.

The Facts Regarding Layoffs

Today most of the National Media (CNN,MSNBC,NBC,CBS,ABC,NPR) imply that the recession is ending by the end of the year as they pluck out numbers found in reports given out by the CBO or Bureau of Labor Statistics and other entities and not offering all of the facts, but the truth is states are still struggling to cover bloated budgets that were established during the years of 2003 through 2006 where excessive spending was the
Norm; do to the amount of revenue received through taxes. Today as we all know, most states out there are dealing with unemployment rates over the 10% mark. With government spending at a all time high borrowing most of their revenue from China and embarking on a national healthcare plan that could cost another 2 to 3 trillion dollars over the next 5 years and states like these listed below carrying employment figures of over
10% with rising taxes and states cutting programs just to stay alive. How is this economy going to recover by the end of this year or by June 2010?
Unemployment Percentages with states
ALABAMA 10.1 GEORGIA 10.1
ILLINOIS 10.3 FLORIDA 10.6
INDIANA 10.7 TENNESSEE 10.8
DIST. OF COLUMBIA 10.9 KENTUCKY 10.9
NORTH CAROLINA 11.0 OHIO 11.1
CALIFORNIA 11.6 NEVADA 12.0
SOUTH CAROLINA 12.1 OREGON 12.2
RHODE ISLAND 12.4 MICHIGAN 15.2


THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION: JUNE 2009
Nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline in June (-467,000), and the unemployment rate was little changed at 9.5 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported in June 2009. Job losses were widespread across the major industry sectors, with large declines occurring in manufacturing, professional and business services, and construction.

The number of unemployed persons (14.7 million) and the unemployment rate (9.5 percent) were little changed in June. Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed persons has increased by 7.2 million, and the unemployment rate has risen by 4.6 percentage points.

In June, unemployment rates for the major worker groups—adult men (10.0 percent), adult women (7.6 percent), teenagers (24.0 percent), whites (8.7 percent), blacks (14.7 percent), and Hispanics (12.2 percent)—showed little change. The unemployment rate for Asians was 8.2 percent, not seasonally adjusted.

Last Summary in May 2009 looked at Employers who took 2,933 mass layoff actions in May that resulted in the separation of 312,880 workers, seasonally adjusted, as measured by new filings for unemployment insurance benefits during the month, the Bureau
of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported then. Each
action involved at least 50 persons from a single employer. The number
of mass layoff events in May increased by 221 from the prior month, and
the number of associated initial claims increased by 41,654. Over the
year, the number of mass layoff events increased by 1,232 and associated
initial claims increased by 132,322. Initial claims rose to its highest
level on record, while events matched the peak level from March 2009.
In May, 1,331 mass layoff events were reported in the manufacturing sector,
seasonally adjusted, resulting in 165,802 initial claims. Over the year,
manufacturing events and initial claims more than doubled.

During the 18 months from December 2007 through May 2009, the total
number of mass layoff events (seasonally adjusted) was 37,059, and the
number of initial claims (seasonally adjusted) was 3,811,307. (December
2007 was the start of a recession as designated by the National Bureau
of Economic Research.)

The national unemployment rate was 9.4 percent in May 2009, seasonally
adjusted, up from 8.9 percent the prior month and from 5.5 percent a year
earlier. In May, total nonfarm payroll employment decreased by 345,000
over the month and by 5,366,000 from a year earlier.

The Employment Situation for July 2009 is scheduled to be released on Friday, August 7 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Below is list of all states and where they stand with there own unemployment figures.

States rankings among the unemployed
1 NORTH DAKOTA 4.2
2 NEBRASKA 5.0
3 SOUTH DAKOTA 5.1
4 UTAH 5.7
5 WYOMING 5.9
6 IOWA 6.2
7 OKLAHOMA 6.3
8 MONTANA 6.4
9 LOUISIANA 6.8
9 NEW HAMPSHIRE 6.8
9 NEW MEXICO 6.8
12 KANSAS 7.0
13 VERMONT 7.1
14 ARKANSAS 7.2
14 VIRGINIA 7.2
16 MARYLAND 7.3
17 HAWAII 7.4
18 TEXAS 7.5
19 COLORADO 7.6
20 CONNECTICUT 8.0
21 PENNSYLVANIA 8.3
22 ALASKA 8.4
22 DELAWARE 8.4
22 IDAHO 8.4
22 MINNESOTA 8.4
26 MAINE 8.5
27 MASSACHUSETTS 8.6
28 ARIZONA 8.7
28 NEW YORK 8.7
30 MISSISSIPPI 9.0
30 WISCONSIN 9.0
32 NEW JERSEY 9.2
32 WEST VIRGINIA 9.2
34 MISSOURI 9.3
34 WASHINGTON 9.3
36 ALABAMA 10.1
36 GEORGIA 10.1
38 ILLINOIS 10.3
39 FLORIDA 10.6
40 INDIANA 10.7
41 TENNESSEE 10.8
42 DIST.OF COLUMBIA 10.9
42 KENTUCKY 10.9
44 NORTH CAROLINA 11.0
45 OHIO 11.1
46 CALIFORNIA 11.6
47 NEVADA 12.0
48 SOUTH CAROLINA 12.1
49 OREGON 12.2
50 RHODE ISLAND 12.4
51 MICHIGAN 15.2