Unemployment Essentially Unchanged in July 2010

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has released its report on the state of employment in the U. S. for the month of July 2010:

Both the number of unemployed persons, at 14.6 million, and the unemployment rate, at 9.5 percent, were unchanged in July. (See table A-1.)

Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for adult men (9.7 percent), adult women (7.9 percent), teenagers (26.1 percent), whites (8.6 percent), blacks (15.6 percent), and Hispanics (12.1 percent) showed little or no change in July. The jobless rate for Asians was 8.2 percent, not seasonally adjusted. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.)

In July, the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) was little changed at 6.6 million. These individuals made up 44.9 percent of unemployed persons. (See table A-12.)

The civilian labor force participation rate (64.6 percent) and the employment-population ratio (58.4 percent) were essentially unchanged in July; however, these measures have declined by 0.6 percentage point and 0.4 point, respectively, since April. (See table A-1.)

Pretty lousy recovery. At the current rate the time it will takvire before those who’ve lost their jobs in the recession can return to the workforce will be quite some time. Manufacturing, healthcare, and transportation added jobs; financial activities and construction shed jobs over the period.

Most of the manufacturing jobs added were in the auto sector and we can’t expect that to continue. Indeed, that sector already has substantial excess capacity and we can only expect the overseas competition to increase. That’s unfortunate because, as I’ve pointed out previously, worldwide there’s too much auto manufacturing capacity by a wide margin.

6 comments… add one
  • Pretty lousy recovery.

    I think it was to be expected that unemployment wouldn’t recover for sometime. The last two recoveries had considerable lag time before the labor markets turned around.

    Now politically it is really bad news for the party in power. My guess is that unless we see dramatic changes in the unemployment situation the Democrats are going to get hammered in November. Which is probably a good thing.

  • steve Link

    “http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/08/reinhart_this_is_not_something.html

    Maybe, but if Reinhart and Rogoff have it correct, we could be looking at changes every 2 years with no coherent policy. Not sure this is a good time for the status quo to reign.

    Steve

  • Right now we have huge amounts of regime uncertainty when one party is in power. In other words, you have it exactly backwards.

    Try reading this part,

    CR: It isn’t corporate, non-financial companies that are overleveraged. It’s the households and the financial industry. The corporates are not burdened down by all this debt overhang that I’ve been talking about. So it’s not surprising that the corporate sector is recovering sooner. But the households, which are their ultimate consumers, are still mired in debt. And so right now, you see a period in which corporations are being very cautious, and for good reason. There’s a lot of uncertainty about the engine of growth in the United States. In recent recessions, it was households. But now there are concerns about household’s abilities to pull that off. So we have concerns about household balance sheets and, because of deficits, future tax policy. Uncertainty is not the best friend of investment.

    While the Obama Administration is not the sole source of uncertainty, they have certainly added too it with a slew of questionable legislation.

  • steve Link

    “Right now we have huge amounts of regime uncertainty when one party is in power.”

    But with our two party system, we dont really have that. Compare what we have done with what the Brits are doing. In a parliamentary government, you can make fundamental changes. In our system you need FDR type majorities. So, what we get is legislation aimed at a 59th and 60th senator. That means we just tinker with our existing system as it is the safest option.

    Under ordinary circumstances I can see the case for gridlock. Voting out the party in power every two years has some merit. These are not ordinary times.

    Steve

  • Under ordinary circumstances I can see the case for gridlock. Voting out the party in power every two years has some merit. These are not ordinary times.

    Ahhh the clarion call of all statists for increasing power of the State. Sorry, but no. While this recession is not going to be the run of the mill recession, the idea that we need extraordinary measures is baloney. Because we wont get extraordinary measures when you give the State and its agents more power…you’ll just get more business as usual–e.g. the financial bailout bill.

  • steve Link

    You would also, under your proposal, get more of the same from the finance system. Huge amounts of synthetic financial instruments being traded, not on markets because bankers can make more money in private. We would have banks shopping the ratings agencies until they get their AAA rating. We would have originators pushing option ARMs on people qualified for better loans. We would have banks offering non recourse, 125% mortgages. Maybe most importantly, we would have banks ignoring capital requirements as much or more than they have in the past (see Black’s book).

    Laissez faire is not the answer. The finance sector has no motivation to change. Yet, any attempt to change it externally is statist. That puts us back at the status quo.

    Steve

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