Friday, May 8, 2009

When 8.9% Unemployment Starts Sounding Good


The U.S. economy lost a less-than-expected 539,000 jobs in April and unemployment jumped to 8.9%, according to the Labor Department.

The fact that it is the highest since 1983, well ... So will the market go up on the news that only 539,000 people lost their jobs in April? Or will the numbers be revised when no one is looking next month.

Oh really -- The hype continues. Isn't it all about 'sounding good'. There are now about 6.4 million unemployed workers.

Most of the improvement came from the government hiring temporary workers for the White House run census. As I understand it, the voter fraud group ACORN is participating in the census.

Update: The Wall Street Journal made an this point in its coverage of this jobs report:

Still, even though the decline was the smallest in six months, a good deal of the improvement came from temporary government hiring in advance of next year's Census.

How many media outlets will report that 72,000 government jobs were added to the total?

No comments: