Some 83,000 fewer people were jobless last month, BLS added, but a separate survey showed companies cut 85,000 jobs. Revised figures showed firms added 4,000 jobs in November, the first such increase since the recession began two years ago.
The jobless rate at the end of the year was precisely double the 5% rate that existed two years before, at the start of the current deep recession, also known as the Bush Crash. It was 2-1/2 times the rate that ended the prior decade: 4% in December 1999.
The number of jobless declined to 15.267 million in December, BLS said. But another 589,000 people dropped out of the labor force, and the share of the U.S. population that is employed drifted down to 58.2% in December.
Bush left the Obama administration to deal with a jobless rate of 8.2% at the start of last year, and monthly job losses averaging 691,000 at that time – not 85,000.
Despite the lack of change in overall jobless rates from November to December, the unemployment data still had troubling signals:
• Factories continued their 10-year slide, shedding 27,000 jobs in December, down to 11.63 million. Half of the lost factory jobs have been high-paying union jobs, the AFL-CIO Industrial Unions Council said. BLS said 1.747 million factory workers were jobless in December. The sector had an 11.9% jobless rate.
• Construction shed 53,000 jobs in December and is down to 5.907 million workers. There are more than 2 million jobless construction workers and the unemployment rate in construction is 22.7%, compared to 15.3% in December 2008.
• Two sectors added jobs in December: Business services (+50,000), and education and health services (+35,000), which includes hospitals and nursing homes. Much of the business services increase was due to the hiring of temporary workers, BLS said.
• The number and percentage of long-term jobless continued to climb, reaching 6.1 million – 40% of all jobless workers. The percentage of workers who are unemployed, underemployed or who have quit seeking work stayed at more than one in six in December: 17.3%.
Mark Gruenberg writes for Press Associates, Inc., news service. Used by permission.
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Some 83,000 fewer people were jobless last month, BLS added, but a separate survey showed companies cut 85,000 jobs. Revised figures showed firms added 4,000 jobs in November, the first such increase since the recession began two years ago.
The jobless rate at the end of the year was precisely double the 5% rate that existed two years before, at the start of the current deep recession, also known as the Bush Crash. It was 2-1/2 times the rate that ended the prior decade: 4% in December 1999.
The number of jobless declined to 15.267 million in December, BLS said. But another 589,000 people dropped out of the labor force, and the share of the U.S. population that is employed drifted down to 58.2% in December.
Bush left the Obama administration to deal with a jobless rate of 8.2% at the start of last year, and monthly job losses averaging 691,000 at that time – not 85,000.
Despite the lack of change in overall jobless rates from November to December, the unemployment data still had troubling signals:
• Factories continued their 10-year slide, shedding 27,000 jobs in December, down to 11.63 million. Half of the lost factory jobs have been high-paying union jobs, the AFL-CIO Industrial Unions Council said. BLS said 1.747 million factory workers were jobless in December. The sector had an 11.9% jobless rate.
• Construction shed 53,000 jobs in December and is down to 5.907 million workers. There are more than 2 million jobless construction workers and the unemployment rate in construction is 22.7%, compared to 15.3% in December 2008.
• Two sectors added jobs in December: Business services (+50,000), and education and health services (+35,000), which includes hospitals and nursing homes. Much of the business services increase was due to the hiring of temporary workers, BLS said.
• The number and percentage of long-term jobless continued to climb, reaching 6.1 million – 40% of all jobless workers. The percentage of workers who are unemployed, underemployed or who have quit seeking work stayed at more than one in six in December: 17.3%.
Mark Gruenberg writes for Press Associates, Inc., news service. Used by permission.