Three quarters of a million jobs gone March

[Beet]

The stimulus wasn't big enough.

------------------
By Bob Willis

April 1 (Bloomberg) -- Companies in the U.S. cut an estimated 742,000 workers in March, pointing to no relief in sight for the labor market amid the longest recession in seven decades, a private report based on payroll data showed today.

The drop in the ADP Employer Services gauge was larger than economists forecast and the most since records began in 2001. February’s reading was revised to show cut of 706,000 workers, up from a previous estimate of 697,000.

Companies are slashing staff as tight credit conditions and shrinking household wealth cause sales to shrink. The Labor Department may report in two days that employers cut payrolls in March for a 15th consecutive month, putting jobs losses in the current downturn at more than 5 million, according to a Bloomberg survey.

“The weakness is distributed across all components of the economy,” Joel Prakken, chairman of Macroeconomic Advisers LLC in St. Louis, said in a conference call. “We are going to see several more months of serious bleeding before we see lesser job losses.”

The ADP report was forecast to show a decline of 663,000 jobs, according to the median estimate of 30 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. Projections were for decreases ranging from 525,000 to 750,000.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a5v2qhnRrcWU&refer=home

[??????????]

The stimulus wasn't big enough.

Sounds like a cue in for a Viagra commercial.

[k-onmmunist]

More proof that the stimulus was a waste of time and money.

[CARLHAYDEN]

Um, will the unemployment rate exceed ten per cent in the next twelve months?

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

This tells us that the stimulus didn't save jobs at all. No surprises here, obviously.

[Holmes]

If we're talking stimulus, I thought only 15% would be spent in 2009?

[© tweed]

[insert generic post about the 'lagging indicator' here]

[Sensei]

[insert generic post about the 'lagging indicator' here]

thank you. Only person to make sense of the thread so far.

[Marokai Backbeat]

More proof that the stimulus was a waste of time and money.

Yes because it was totally expected to take effect immediately.

Spare me and your immature "libertarian" nonsense.

[War on Want]

[insert generic post about the 'lagging indicator' here]

sanity is cool.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Obama needs to stop giving away trillions to the lazy overpaid bastards on Wall Street who caused this mess, and actually do something about the big heaping pile of crap on Main Street. You can give a bank all of the money in the world, but if they don't want to loan money, they're not going to. Screw the deadwood banks, it's time to help the ordinary Americans.

BTW, great timing for Californian's 1% increase in sales tax.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The stupidity in this thread is almost blinding. This is Einzige level.

Obama signed the stimulus into law on Feb. 17. That's 11 days before March began. Yes, that's going to be a huge effect on March

How much of the stimulus has even gone into effect yet? I doubt it's even 10%. Just yesterday at work we got a memo about how some tax credits from it should be on our next paychecks thanks to the stimulus (luckily it's also retroactive to mid-February when it was signed, so we get some backpay compensation), but that hasn't been paid out yet. No one ever promised its effects would come in a month.

*Waits for Duke and co. to ignore this.*

[Lief 🗽]

BRTD speaks sense.

[opebo]

I'll second that praise of our forum's finest.  But I would also like to point out that viewed in either of two ways jobs losses need not be a 'bad thing'.

From the right we can see that the fewer jobs there are and the more workers competing for them.. well you can see why they like this.  It is good for productivity, the balance sheet, and most importantly Builds Character.  "Why, I had to walk ten miles in the snow to get turned down for a job licking boots".. that sort of thing.

And from the left I would like to point out that 'stimulus' is not 'jobs' unless they are actual government jobs or jobs directly on government contracts.  Any secondary effect in the 'private' economy is just that, secondary, and most definitely second rate.  The ultimate and best stimulus is precisely the opposite of jobs - a generous, comfortable dole.

[A18]

Economic performance will tell us nothing about whether the spending-spree "worked," was positive but inadequate, was counterproductive, or was none of the above. That would require a controlled experiment (and good luck with that).

Of course, BRTD's argument overlooks the fact that firms (and investors) take the future into account when making decisions.