Sunday, February 28, 2010

For 15 Million Unemployed any Job is a Good Job; Questions for Pollyannas; Wishes Aren't Fishes

Let's take a look at the employment situation and prospects for jobs starting with the cold hard numbers as they exist today. Please consider the following grim unemployment statistics.

* 14.8 million unemployed
* 3.8 million want a job but are not considered unemployed because they have not looked in the past four weeks
* 8.3 million have a part-time job, but want a full time job

Total that up and you will see there are 26.9 million people who are unemployed or underemployed.

Bear in mind the above numbers do not count self-employed real estate agents without a sale for months, salesmen on commission only, those selling trinkets on Ebay and many other ventures where income has precipitously plunged, sometimes to zero.

Also note that part-time job workers for even a few hours a week, are still considered employed.

Of the unemployed, 6.3 million have been out of work 27 weeks or longer. The average duration of unemployment is 30.2 weeks.

Those mind-numbing statistics are straight from the BLS Employment Situation Report For January 2010. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

Unemployment Projections

Bernanke is only fooling himself if he thinks this situation will turn around soon.I believe we are going to see the unemployment rate above 9% all the way out to 2015 even if there is no double-dip recession.

I made those projections in Mish Unemployment Projections Through 2020 http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot. ... rough.html and covered it again in Mapping Unemployment - You Make The Call - Downloadable Spreadsheet. http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot. ... -call.html

The Fed has given new unemployment projections that I believe are from Mars, and when I get a chance I will try and map them to show just what it will take to reach the Fed's targets.

Millions of Unemployed Face Years Without Jobs

26.9 million is such a huge number that it is hard to equate to. Yet those are real people, many whose lives are permanently destroyed. Moreover, If my projections are correct, many of those jobs are not coming back for years, and most likely ever.

The New York Times puts some names and faces of the "New Poor" in an gut-wrenching four page article Millions of Unemployed Face Years Without Jobs. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/busin ... 1&emc=eta1

Even as the American economy shows tentative signs of a rebound, the human toll of the recession continues to mount, with millions of Americans remaining out of work, out of savings and nearing the end of their unemployment benefits.



Call them the new poor: people long accustomed to the comforts of middle-class life who are now relying on public assistance for the first time in their lives — potentially for years to come.

Yet the social safety net is already showing severe strains. Roughly 2.7 million jobless people will lose their unemployment check before the end of April unless Congress approves the Obama administration’s proposal to extend the payments, according to the Labor Department.

“American business is about maximizing shareholder value,â€