**UPDATED**
BUREAU OF Labor Statistics revealed the unemployment dropped from 8.3% to 8.1%, with 96,000 jobs added, but there was a loss of 15,000 manufacturing jobs.
Uncertainty of business owners about “where we’re headed” is part of what hit in these disappointing numbers, according to CNBC’s Becky Quick this morning.
Mark Zandi of Moody’s, who spoke with Chuck Todd this morning, doesn’t believe the Federal Reserve will offer QE3 until 2013, after the election.
Jobs growth slowed more than expected in August, setting the stage for the Federal Reserve to pump additional money into the sluggish economy next week and dealing a blow to President Obama as he seeks reelection in November.
Nonfarm payrolls increased only 96,000 last month, the Labor Department said on Friday. While the unemployment rate dropped to 8.1 percent from 8.3 percent in July, it was largely due to Americans giving up the search for work.
Government jobs dropped for the sixth straight month, which isn’t helping anyone.
Let’s end with the positive, from Dean Baker:
While most of the news is household survey was negative, there were a couple of bright spots. The percentage of unemployment due to people voluntarily quitting their jobs, a measure of workers’ confidence in the labor market, rose to 7.5 percent putting it near the winter levels. Also, the number of workers involuntarily working part-time, as well as the number of discouraged workers, both fell, pushing the broad U-6 measure of labor market slack to its lowest point since January of 2009.
This post has been updated.
Reuters start quote:
and dealing a blow to President Obama as he seeks reelection in November.
end quote
As much as the inside the beltway crowd thinks these numbers matter, they don’t. All they are is an indication of how much trouble an administration is in. There are so many unemployed and underemployed who aren’t covered by any of those numbers right now that it’s hard to judge if they’re even saying things are getting better or worse.
We all look at our personal economies, I think, and go from there to judge how things are going. At best, things like the monthly BLS report just aggregate those personal economies into a larger picture.
I don’t think Dean Baker’s right about the increase in people voluntarily quitting is a good indication. It’s mixed in with too many bad ones. Consumer confidence is down, so why would workers be more confident? Doesn’t make sense to me. Yes, I just wrote that it’s all about aggregates of personal economies, but none of the trends look good.
I should add that anyone who wants to see a serious and unflinching analysis of each month’s job numbers should go on over to Corrente and check Hugh’s latest article on the subject. This month, he estimates there are about 8.5 million people who aren’t included in the U-3 number, and should be. His assumptions are all there to argue with, should you choose. I think he’s pretty close to right. He uses assumptions similar to mine when I try to estimate the undercount. The real numbers are very troubling, particularly when you consider that there is a large portion of the population who could now be considered chronically out of work, in that they may never be able to find a proper paying job again.