368,000 people stopped looking for work...

[cynatnite]

The unemployment rate fell largely because 368,000 people stopped looking for work, many of them young people. Just 63.5% of the working-age population was either employed or actively looking for work -- a 30-year low.

"These numbers are not very strong," said Joseph LaVorgna, chief U.S. economist at Deutsche Bank. "The job market is improving, but only gradually."

http://money.cnn.com/2012/09/07/news/economy/august-jobs-report/index.html

That's why today's numbers were not good news. I don't think they were overly bad, but this did not help.

on edit: Call me a debbie downer if you want. I don't think this hurts Obama's chances.

[JaneyVee]

1. We've got a long road ahead, but we can get there. We're still recovering from the storm

And it will take time to rebuild what basically the culmination of almost 30 years helped destroy.

[cynatnite]

2. Agree completely! We need to keep our feet on the ground, though. n/t

[Gabi Hayes]

3. how many senate republicans voted for the jobs bill last year? and

how many republicans in the house?

oops, they didn't even bring it up in the house, did they?

and not a single pub senator voted for it.

how many jobs would it have created had it been passed last year?

about a million

not much talk of that today, except on.....drumroll.....msnbc

just how bad these numbers are for Obama>>>that was on all three networks, CNN, and PBS

quel surprise

[patrice]

4. I'd like to see the direct-hire rate compared to contracting through head-hunters.

That's permanent work with benefits compared to open-ended, maybe we'll hire you maybe we won't work, temporary work, without benefits, usually, or with poor benefits and you only earn HALF of what the client pays, because the other half goes to the staffing agency, of which there is a huge proliferation lately, with mixed bags of HR degrees out there churning the HR market over and over again.

How would you feel about 1/2 of what your work is worth going to a parasite between you and the employer? Is it any wonder that people might not think it's worth the effort?

[Drunken Irishman]

5. We lost roughly 3 million jobs in early 2009...

Think about that for a second - we lost more jobs in three months than President Bush created in almost his entire 8 years as president. That was on top of continuous job loss between Dec. 2007 and Dec. 2008! We eclipsed 4 million job losses even before Obama took office.

Anyone who expected we'd recoup those losses in four years was fooling themselves. While 96,000 jobs is not enough - it's infinitely better than the 250,000 jobs we lost in August of 2008. It's going to take a lot of time to come out of this hole and there will be months where we have a lackluster jobs report and months where the job report beats the estimation. I think Americans realize this and it's why, even through poor reports in the past, Obama's ratings haven't taken a hit.

But remember, August's report still out-paced April, May and June.

So, we are seeing improvement ... even if it's still not enough.

[zbdent]

6. We've had a preview of the Romney presidency ...

roadblocks in place in the "road to recovery" ...

put down 10 minutes after the polls closed in November 2010 ... when the Repugnicons retook the House.

The 'baggers suddenly found that someone was actually taking them seriously ... the Speaker came grovelling to them for guidance.

[Carla in Sequim]

7. It may be slower, but...

that is because our president wants to include all of us. That just simply takes more time.

The draconian cuts of the lyin' ryan budget is faster because it would be for the top 1% only. When you don't include seniors, the working poor, veterans, etc., the results will not keep them from losing one minute of sleep. They are that reprehensible.

[EC]

8. I'd like to see a break down

of how many went back to school for retraining or adding new skills and how many were people starting their own businesses.

[Honeycombe8]

9. Don't people stop looking for work every month these days?

So that when you compare this past month to the month before, you're comparing apples to apples, since people stopped looking for work in BOTH months? Which means the unemployment rate of 8.1 is in real terms .2 less than the 8.3 the month before.

In the end, it is an INCREASE in jobs. It could've been the same or a decrease, as it was every month not too long ago.

Let's not forget this is two mos. before a presidential election. Companies don't hire when times are uncertain. What will their taxes be? What will the effect of Obamacare be? Will the ACA be repealed if Romney wins? Will taxes go up, or down?

Once the election is over, I am looking for things to settle down and get better.

This was a bad recession. Really bad. It's going to take a while to get out of it. Steady as she goes.

[ashling]

10. I have always wondered how they come up with how many people stopped looking for work

I know that all of these numbers are extrapolations from other figures about things that have at times only a tangential relation to what they are actually measuring, but how the hell do they decide who has stopped looking for work and what the hell does that mean anyway?

[nc4bo]

11. Not downplaying the plight of the struggling to find work but must ask, since when did GOP care

about the number of people who are no longer looking for work? They didn't bother to comment when the Idiot Son was sitting on his throne, did they? No.

I've been scratching my head all day today....even asked my hubby. The ONLY people who care about the dropping of people from the main statistic were Democrats, the Democrats on DU.

Heard Fox News (and saw their screener) talking about the jobs number and right underneath was.... 368k people who stopped looking for work

All of a sudden, these mofo'ers are owning this like it was their own concern and it royally pisses me off even more so when Dem surrogates (even our friends on the liberal side of MSNBC haven't that I'm aware of - they could have but I don't recall it) neglect to mention this sad little fact.

[BarackTheVote]

12. +1 they only care because they can USE it!

QUESTION! Why in the heck are job numbers a good litmus for how Obama's doing in the first place? Call me a conspiracy theorist, but... the reason why the Republicans suck so much is because they're in the pocket of these big companies... these big companies are the "job creators"--these so-called "job creators" have been destroying our working class for years, outsourcing to far-off countries where $10 can buy you an entire work force. Isn't it possible, at all possible, that they're intentionally depressing their hiring to make Obama look bad so that their boyos can get back into power and give all of our tax dollars to them? Just a thought.

My opinion: we've been cowtoeing to these big multinationals for too long. Trying to attract them, putting up with their abuse so long as they PROVIDE FOR US... Holy shit-pickles, we are, as a nation, in an ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP I think we need to get some self-respect. We're good enough, we're pretty enough... we don't have to settle for corporations that want US to change for THEM! We don't have to PUT UP when they smack us around! There's plenty of other fish in the sea, and once we dump these ABUSIVE ASSHOLES, someone meant just for us will pop up! Maybe, they're waiting just around the corner, waiting for us to kick that BRUTISH POS out of our apartment! Who knows... supply and demand, right? Maybe if those NEANDERTHAL F*CKWITS weren't in the picture anymore, someone else, someone BETTER would rise up and take their places!

You might say that I'm a dreamer, but if hollywood has taught me anything, it's that once you lose that asshole jock or that stuck-up princess, there's a kind-hearted Seth Rogan or lovely-spirited Mila Kunis waiting just around the corner! But you gotta do the dumping first, America!

[graywarrior]

13. It's August.

Mr G works at a career center. He says hiring is slower in August. Sept/Oct hiring picks up.

[cynatnite]

14. I wondered about that. I was offered a job a few days ago. n/t