The job numbers for May are in — and they aren’t pretty:
With companies in no mood to hire, the U.S. unemployment rate jumped to 9.4 percent in May, the highest in more than 25 years. But the pace of layoffs eased, with employers cutting 345,000 jobs, the fewest since September.
The much smaller-than-expected reduction in payroll jobs, reported by the Labor Department on Friday, adds to evidence that the recession is loosening its hold on the country. It marked the fourth straight month that the pace of layoffs slowed.
There is no doubt that the pace of layoffs has slowed over the course of the last four months. My view is that employers may have laid off less people in March, April and May as a result of rising stocks markets globally and green shoots here at home.
Don’t be surprised if the pace accelerates a little (or a lot) after we see a re-collapse of the global financial markets and employers realize that we are actually out of the recession and headed into a depression!
One other thing to consider is the bank ‘stress’ test result released last month, which utilized a worst-case, adverse scenario of 10.3%. Even with job losses slowing, we may exceed the 10.3% bank stress test figures within the next two or three months. I suspect that the banks are not as well capitalized as we have been led to believe.
     On June the 3rd (3 days into the month), the news was that 535000 jobs were cut with of course not all data in. Suddenly, two , (2) days later the number is 345000. Â
       Does AF447 which went down has something to do with it?
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the real numbers are beyond 20 percent unemployment. only a fool believes otherwise. this game of trying to bullshit the public is getting old. when are they going to tell the goddamned truth???
The truth? What good would that do!?
Warren, it’s funny how they revise the numbers every month. And every month the numbers actually go up. The spin from the media on these numbers is nothing short of amazing. We have the worst unemployment rate since 1983 and the story is spun to make people believe that the recession is over!
Pud, the U-6 unemployment numbers came in at 16.4% this month. Naturally, we need to estimate a little bit higher, because we know that these statistics are most definitely “off” a little bit. John Williams of Shadowstats.com will probably come in with an unofficial figure of 20% or more, like you said.
We’re talking 1 in 5 Americans without a job right now. But hey, why not take the kids to Disneyland? Spend some money!
More detailed info on these month’s job numbers can be found at Mish’s blog: http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/06/jobs-contract-17th-straight-month.html
Mac