7,000 Bad Santas employed over Xmas does not a jobless recovery make
The last thing I want to hear from govt. apparatchiks is the phrase "unemployment is a lagging indicator"...fookers wouldn't have a clue what a lagging indicator is anyhow, what they gonna do next, throw up a stochastic to undeprin their next seasonally adjusted chart? There was news doing the rounds last week (in the UK) after the announcement that unemployment had fallen by 7,000 re. the real levels of unemployment in the UK. The figures are truly scary and tucked away on page 10 of this pdf is the real story,
there are 5.04 million adults receiving key out of work benefits.
That's the true level of unemployment (vis a vis a direct comparsion with the 80's).
The level of job losses in the US is IMO jaw dropping. What is it 8 million jobs lost inside 2 years? Would have been so much worse if not for the welfare bill/s. I read a commentary a while back that in order to re-build the US would have to create more jobs over a ten year period than at any time since the depression (800K a year) and by which time the next *organic* recession would be just around the corner.
The situation is more cracked than Espaniola...
Employment; Employment rate falls to 72.4 per cent
The employment rate for September to November 2009 was 72.4 per cent. This is the lowest since winter 1996-97 and is down 0.1 on the quarter. The number of people in employment fell by 14,000 on the quarter to reach 28.92 million, the number of people in full-time employment fell by 113,000, and the number of people in part-time employment increased by 99,000 to reach a record high of 7.71 million. There were 1.03 million employees and self-employed people working part-time because they could not find a full-time job. This is the highest figure since records for this series began in 1992 and it is up 46,000 on the quarter.
The number of inactive people of working age increased by 79,000 to reach a record high of 8.05 million. This increase in inactivity is largely driven by the number of students not in the labour market which has increased by 81,000 on the quarter to reach 2.24 million, the highest since comparable records began in 1993.
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/pdfdir/lmsuk0110.pdf
