Hope springs eternal because ONLY 345,000 laid off this month???

[maryf]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090605/ap_on_re_us/us_economy

US loses just 345,000 jobs in May, raising hopes
WTF??? JUST 345,000 jobs?? I feel better already :sarcasm:

excerpt here: (story ain't as positive as the headline would suggest)

US loses just 345,000 jobs in May, raising hopes
By JEANNINE AVERSA, AP Economics Writer Jeannine Aversa, Ap Economics Writer 1 hr 54 mins ago

WASHINGTON – Employers throttled back on layoffs in May and cut the fewest jobs in any month since the financial crisis erupted last fall — raising the brightest hope yet that an economic recovery will take hold later this year.

But with companies still reluctant to hire, the nation's jobless rate rose to a quarter-century high of 9.4 percent, and it likely will keep rising into 2010, possibly within striking distance of its post-World War II peak of 10.8 percent.

The economy shed 345,000 jobs in May, the Labor Department said Friday — half what it was losing in a month at the start of the year. But the report also underscored how hard it has been for America's 14.5 million unemployed to find new jobs.

"Less bad, yes," Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, said, summarizing the economy. "Good, no."

Companies probably won't ramp up hiring until they feel sure a recovery is here to stay. Still, considering the damage the recession has wrought — 6 million jobs lost since December 2007 — it was encouraging that employers cut far fewer jobs in May.

The 345,000 jobs lost was down sharply from 504,000 in April, and an even bigger improvement over the average of nearly 700,000 jobs lost monthly during the first quarter of this year.

"The light at the end of the tunnel just got a lot brighter," said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight.

But not so bright that economists expect more employers to start hiring again this year. Economists expect the pace of layoffs to keep tapering off, but they don't think the economy will begin to create jobs steadily until late next year at the earliest.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

1. Ever take calculus?

Do you know what a function is?

[maryf]

3. Your point? nt

[depakid]

5. A one month deviation from the trend does not a function make

especially when we've yet to see the fallout from the automakers' bankruptcies.

[maryf]

8. Absolutely...

and earlier this year there were already 50,000 homeless in Detroit, how many now??

[depakid]

20. Of course, that doesn't mean that there aren't areas of the economy bottoming out

and affecting the rate of decline- just that new troubles loom directly ahead that will have multiplier effects which for a time will likely cancel them out.

[HughMoran]

2. It's not the end, but it's the beginning of the end

of the recession. Better than going the other direction.

[Mari333]

4. heh. all over the radio today....

'the economy is improving because it looks like we are still in the darkest part of the woods but perhaps we are at the end of being in the darkest part of the woods..'
oh for christs sake!

[maryf]

10. lol!! thanks!

I needed that, we laugh so we do not cry!

[BzaDem]

6. While your sentiment sounds clever, it actually isn't.

Numbers mean nothing without context. The context here is the jobless numbers for the previous month were above 500k, and on average around 700k for Jan, Feb, March. 345k is a huge improvement. It would be completely unreasonable for anyone to expect to go from a loss of 540k one month (coming after huge losses from months before) to a zero job loss or a net gain the next month, even in the best possible scenario.

[maryf]

7. I'm not shooting for clever...over 14 million unemployed...

and going to top 10% soon, and that's just those on the rolls....

[BzaDem]

11. But what were you expecting to happen in the span of a month?

Sure, 14 million unemployed is horrible. But last month, there were almost 14 million unemployed, and that was also horrible. Same with the previous 3 months. Unless you were expecting the number of unemployed people to go down this month (something that couldn't happen in any reasonable scenario), we were always going to have a horrible unemployment number after May's numbers came out. The important question is the difference. 345,000 is not nearly as bad as the 700,000 average over the first 3 months or even the 504,000 of April.

[maryf]

18. These numbers are human beings....

kind of like collateral damage, ya think?

[BzaDem]

23. I never said they weren't.

But if you are saying that should make us fearful of talking about the numbers, I disagree. I don't see how that should prevent anyone from honestly talking about the numbers. If we took that view, then we wouldn't be able to look statistical evidence or other evidence for what policies improve the numbers and what policies make them worse (and we would be worse off).

I don't think your analogy to collateral damage works at all.

Obama and his administration are doing their best to reduce unemployment as much as possible. 14 million jobs can't magically be created tomorrow out of thin air.

[maryf]

24. What are they doing?

and I think collateral damage is a perfect analogy, as much of this is due to the amount the military spend... 54% of the federal budget www.warresisters.org

[BzaDem]

25. How about a 775 billion dollar stimulus package?

That would have been more if we didn't have to get the votes of 2 Rs in the Senate.

The administration also clearly supports Ben Bernanke's efforts at the Fed to flood the system with liquidity.

Those two actions are probably the most effective actions we have for reversing an economic death spiral and reducing unemployment.

[maryf]

27. Oh, you believe that will help the people?

I'm sorry...we can talk in another couple months...

[northernlights]

13. maybe it's because I live in a tourist state, but

for many states, unemployment numbers *always* drop around May and June, as local companies gear up for tourists. Come September, and all those new hires are gone again.

Also, there is the Census this year, adding to the temp roles.

And the pothole filling jobs from the stimulus.

Oh, and here in Maine they had the brilliant idea of selling a $200 course on "weatherization" so you could compete (with construction workers) for the stimulus weatherization jobs. For a real laugh (:cry:), one of the easy weatherization things you can do is fill your attic with newspaper. Seriously. That is directly from the weatherization training Maine was charging people for. I don't know. Somehow it just seems so...Maine.

[Toucano]

9. If you were expecting 500K and got 345K, you might breathe a sigh of relief.

It is still so horrible, though.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

12. Yup. Everything's just swell...if you're a banker getting handouts from the taxpayers.

Just hunky-dory. And, there'll be pie-in-sky when you die.

[Autumn]

14. I heard some idiot say on the news

this morning that the crises is almost over because Wal Mart is expanding and as Wal Mart, goes so goes the nation. :puke: It really made me sick.

[taught_me_patience]

15. "green shoots" are really "green shits"

From David Rosenberg on mish's blog:

Moreover, the internals of today’s report, in a word, were awful. Not only are businesses still cutting jobs but they are also reducing the hours that their employees are working; the private workweek hit a new record low of 33.1 hours (from 33.2 hours in April). So, total labour input was much weaker than the headline payroll suggests and this is vividly illustrated in the aggregate-hours worked index, which fell 0.7% MoM and something ‘green shoot’ advocates will not like discuss since this was actually worse than the 0.3% MoM drop in April; this takes the three-month trend to a -8.6% annual rate. Think about that for a moment because what goes into GDP is total hours worked and productivity — so the latter better continue to hang in there or else we are going to be seeing some nasty output data going forward that may well take Mr. Market by surprise. Put another way, if companies had held hours worked constant in May instead of cutting them, to achieve the total labour input they achieved last month would have required — get this — a 927,000 payroll cut. ‘Green shoot’ indeed.

http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/06/payroll-data-in-perspective.html#disqus_thread

************************************************

[maryf]

19. Thanks for this

maybe you should make this an OP?

[stray cat]

16. Life is relative - if you were not laid off and would have been its a big deal

[cherokeeprogressive]

17. 504,000 April - 345,000 May = 159,000 Jobs Created!

The light at the end of the tunnel is really only a cigarrette that was dropped by the last person going through the tunnel.

[Indy Lurker]

21. Jobs are a lagging indicator

That is to say they don't improve until end of a recession.

While my companies sale haven't picked up yet, I was encouraged to see two of the vendors we buy from were our of packaging materials I wanted.

This is a sign that they have at least burned through their inventory, if not gotten more orders than expected.

[WeDidIt]

22. That's OUITSTANDING news!

Hopefully a trendline is forming.

[sendero]

26. For those who are unaware..

... (like just about everyone here it seems) these numbers have been called into question to the point that the head honcho had to come out and insist they weren't cooked.

There are lots of reasons lots of analysts don't believe the 345K number, google if you care.