Unemployment & Job Destruction Continues

The economic recovery continues.  At least it is continuing for about 5 of every six workers in America.  The Unemployment rate and non-Farm Payrolls data is showing the continuation of a jobless recovery that is slow growth.  Unemployment as a headline  came in at 9.5% versus estimates of 9.6%.  The larger issue is that non-Farm Payrolls data showed that the  economy lost 131,000 jobs.

The 131,000 jobs lost were due to the notion that the private sector gains were not enough to absorb all of those Census workers and government temporary jobs.  The private sector showed a gain of a mere 71,000 positions.

But wait, there’s more.  June’s payrolls were revised down to a figure showing that the fell by 221,000 versus the 125,000 drop that had been previously reported.  Imagine that.  Uncle Sam still can’t get those computers to work properly.  It is interesting how jobs were lost yet the unemployment rate magically came in  under estimates on the headline.  Those workers must have been out for smokes rather than telling some government case worker about their efforts to go find work.

Manufacturing gains were 36,000 versus 13,000 in June.  Construction jobs were down 11,000 in July. The total government jobs lost in July was 202,000 and of those about 48,000 were at the state and local level.

The average workweek rose marginally to 34.2 hours in July, up 0.1 hours versus June; average hourly earnings rose by $0.04 from June to $22.59 in July.

If you get little excitement from this report, there is a reason.  The government claims to be creating an environment where businesses can succeed and hire.  The problem is that the government is not clear on what the tax structure and what the exact conditions will be ahead.  Until there is clarity, our slow anemic growth is going to remain very much a jobless recovery.

JON C. OGG