The Jobs Probs

Jobs numbers disappoint again - Unexpectedly! With one bright spot on the horizon...

American employers added fewer workers to payrolls than forecast in June and the jobless rate stayed at 8.2 percent as the economic outlook dimmed.

The 80,000 gain in employment followed a 77,000 increase in May, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. Economists projected a 100,000 rise, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg News survey. Growth in private payrolls was the weakest in 10 months.

Stocks fell on concern hiring has shifted into a lower gear, restricting consumer spending and leaving the economy more vulnerable to a global slowdown. The figures underscore concern among some Federal Reserve policy makers that growth isn’t fast enough to lower unemployment stuck above 8 percent since February 2009.

“The job market is soft,” said David Resler, chief economic adviser at Nomura Securities International Inc., who correctly forecast the payrolls gain. “I’d characterize our reaction as much the same way the Fed will react -- not surprised but disappointed. It’s just not the kind of growth we need to see at this stage in the business cycle.”

But the private sector is doing just fine, right?  Meanwhile there is one area of explosive job growth, the IRS and other bureaucratic positions related to the Obamacare:



Bear in mind, not a single one of these jobs grows an edible food item, produces a single useful giswitch, or even conducts a research project to solve an interesting or possibly even useful scientific question.