Jobs And Unemployment

The August jobs number was released showing employment rose by 1.4 million. Unemployment fell to 8.4%. It is a 1.8% reduction from July but it still leaves 13.6 million people without jobs. As previously, some good news along with some not so good news.

As in earlier reports, the devil is in the details.  One-fourth of the job growth in August was people finding part-time work because they couldn’t find full-time work.

By some estimates between 42-50% of the jobs lost may not come back again. While much of the job losses are concentrated in entertainment and leisure, department stores are filing for bankruptcy, airlines are switching from furloughs to laying off workers, etc. There is also concern as local governments lose revenues, they may start laying off workers.

Not surprisingly, the demographics of unemployment impacts minorities the most.

8.0%  adult men
8.4%  adult women
16.1%  teenagers
7.3%  white men and women (didn’t have a gender breakdown)
13.0%  African-Americans
10.0%  Hispanic
10.7%  Asians