There is some silver lining to the relentless clouds of jobless news which included weekly initial unemployment filings which reached a ten month high last week of 500,000

A Bureau of Labor Statistics report for July unemployment by region and city shows that some of the hardest hit states added jobs from June 2010 to July 2010. The jobless rate improved in 37 states, based on non-farm payroll data, while it worsened in 13 states.

Michigan, battered by the downturn in the car industry, added 27,800 jobs, perhaps due to auto companies slightly increasing production as their sales have improved. Massachusetts added 13,200 jobs, and New York added 10.500 jobs.

But, several hard hit states showed a worsening of their jobs situation as the July figures were compared with July 2009. Nevada’s jobless rate rose to 14.3% from 12.3%. It now has the higher unemployment rate of any state, driven primarily be a drop in jobs in the gaming business and in construction. Real estate price have dropped in Las Vegas more than any other large city over the last year.

Michigan still has the second highest unemployment rate at 13.1% followed by California at 12.3%.

The data show that although there have been modest recoveries in the number of unemployed in some regions, the states most badly damaged by the recession have high enough jobless rates that it may take them years to recover to the “normal” rate that economists use as a benchmark–about 5%

These badly hurt states are also a petri dish for the success of federal jobs programs, or lack thereof, as the number of chronically unemployed people grow. Nearly 1.5 million Americans have been out of work for over 99 weeks and have exhausted all of their unemployment insurance.

Whatever the government as attempted to do, it cannot retrain people with manufacturing and construction skills. At least, it cannot do so at any perceptible pace.

Douglas A. McIntyre

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