Unemployment Rate Still the Same for Q3

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job loss, obama, recession, depression, 

Unemployment rates in many states throughout the US stayed at a steady rate, and the country hovers around 10 percent even.

Michigan is still the highest at nearly 15 percent. California and S. Carolina are at 12.3 percent. Lots of media reports say that job losses are decreasing, but they don’t add that there aren’t actually many jobs being created. Its just that people are out of the labor pool in that they aren’t looking for jobs.

The San Francisco Chronicle says:

But the labor market remains weak. In addition to more than 2 million unemployed, 1.52 million Californians can find only part-time work. Nearly 900,000 others have quit looking for work but want jobs.

All three groups are added together to create an underemployment rate. California’s underemployment rate for November was 23 percent, up from 22.5 percent in October, as the unemployed, part-time workers and labor force dropouts all increased.

A defining characteristic of this recession has been the lengthening duration of unemployment. Nearly 34 percent of California’s unemployed in November were out of work for more than 27 weeks. A year ago only 20 percent had remained jobless that long.

Dallas News says:

But some industries continued to lose jobs, particularly manufacturing and construction. Moreover, more than half the job gains during the two-month period came from the government, not the private sector.

According to job data kept by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, private-sector employment fell in October but edged up in November.

Overall employment posted two consecutive months of gains for the first time since mid-2008, the Dallas Fed said.

“It’s very slight, but positive nonetheless,” said Keith Phillips, an economist in the Dallas Fed’s San Antonio branch. “It does show the process of bottoming out.”

Like the Texas Workforce Commission, the Dallas Fed relies on employment data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. But the Dallas Fed performs its own seasonal adjustments and incorporates updated information from unemployment insurance records more frequently than the state and federal agencies.

San Diego Reader says: 

San Diego gained 4,500 jobs in November. However, seasonal retail sales jobs accounted for 3,700 of those gains. Government jobs also rose 1,200 in the month. Jobs in leisure and hospitality and manufacturing continued to drop. The county has lost 43,300 jobs, or 3.4%, from a year ago.