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Ear to the Ground

More Good News on Jobs for February

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Posted on Mar 9, 2012
Flickr / edEx

For the third month in a row, figures coming in from the Department of Labor signal a stronger recovery in the employment market than the country has seen in years. President Obama gets a boost from the good news, but is there any way to read these numbers differently? And who’s benefiting the most? Here’s a breakdown from The New York Times.

The New York Times:

The economy added 227,000 jobs in February, the Labor Department reported Friday, and though the unemployment rate held steady at 8.3 percent, that was largely because nearly half a million people had joined, or resumed, the search for work in hopes their prospects had improved.

“We’ve seen a lot less Eeyore,” said Sherry Leginski, operations director at CareerPlace, a job placement center in the Chicago suburb of Barrington. “Maybe they’re turning a little bit more Tigger instead of Eeyore. They’re feeling better.”

[...] There were job gains across a broad swath of industries, including manufacturing, finance, professional services like law and accounting, hotels and restaurants, and mining. The construction industry lost jobs after two months of gains, and the retail sector shrank. For black men, the jobless rate increased, to 14.3 percent from 12.7 percent, while the biggest employment gains went to whites, black women and, overwhelmingly, to college graduates.

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By Vikash Kumar Munda, May 13, 2012 at 3:18 am Link to this comment

Population is rising but with that billions of job seekers 227,000 jobs will do nothing in improving economy.
jobs in patna

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By prisnersdilema, March 13, 2012 at 1:57 pm Link to this comment

Yes, those green shoots have grown to maturity and produced a fine crop of crab grass.

Its going to take alot of manure to keep them growing, and that just stinks…

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By vector56, March 11, 2012 at 4:53 pm Link to this comment

No one, and I mean “no one”, seems to be commenting on the “quality” of these new jobs? I hear the MSNBC “fake-liberals” singing Obama’s praise daily; “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs!”

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/11/19/1038067/-Jobs-Jobs-Jobs-?via=blog_744899

The fact is unless we re-negotiate NAFTA and the WTO none of the millions of jobs we loss to “slave-wage” workers over seas are not coming back.  No one is talking about this anymore; not the replacement Liberals; not Obama,  not the Democrats, or the Unions!  Their “magic bullet” seems to be infrastructure rebuilding.

Many good paying, good benefit public jobs are being swapped for lower wage private employment (with little or no benefits).  The years of gains unionized workers have made is being systematically reversed. 

Again I ask; what is the “quality” of these new jobs?

Do they pay a “living wage”?

Do they provide “affordable Health care”?

Working class people have “teeth”, is there Dental?

Odds are most are “McJobs”  pad Obama’s numbers and help “him” win a second term.

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By Blueokie, March 10, 2012 at 4:04 pm Link to this comment

Administration fun with numbers.  Last year you made 45k a year with benefits, this year you make $10 an hour and 32 hours is full time, see the Dims are looking out for you.

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By Big B, March 10, 2012 at 1:17 pm Link to this comment

Sitting presidents have always had the advantage of information control when it comes to those pesky monthly and quarterly stats.

Figures lie and liars figure.

oddsox is right, it takes well over 200,000 jobs a month to keep pace with population growth, deaths, retirements ect. The problem is that we all to often treat all jobs statistically the same, when they are not.

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By oddsox, March 10, 2012 at 9:57 am Link to this comment

it’s the Red Queen’s race:

“it takes all the running you can do (227,000 new jobs/month?), to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”

We need job increases just to keep up with population growth.
100,000/mo to 300,000/mo depending on who you believe.
(I’ve also read 400,000, but don’t buy that one)

As I posted elsewhere:
This report is good news for the President.
If the 8.3% number holds ‘til November, Obama gets re-elected.
Also: If we were already at 5% or 6% jobless, the added 227,000 jobs/month would keep us there.

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By ardee, March 10, 2012 at 7:56 am Link to this comment

More propaganda than actual good news. Just an early campaign ploy I fear.

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