May Jobs Report - Predictions

[Tender Branson]

I predict about 183.000 NF jobs created and the rate down to 8.9%

[Ban my account ffs!]

I predict fewer than 100,000 jobs and a jump in the employment rate.  I think the 2008/09 recession was basically like the 1980 recession... and the one that's probably about to hit us will be like 1981/82 in comparison.

Gas just cannot near $4/gallon without slamming economic growth to a halt.

[Ban my account ffs!]

I notice CARL deleted his post about how the BLS is a shill for Obama and would inflate the job numbers to make the Democrats look good.

54,000 jobs in May... terrible.  83,000 private sector jobs deeply offset by the loss of 29,000 government jobs.  Republicans will be cheering that!  Their focus is jobs jobs jobs... well... killing jobs anyway.

[The Vorlon]

Right now the "headline number" (ie 9.1%) is pretty much meanngless.

The current situation is such that the number will not move very far in either direction from 9% or so.

There are currently a huge number of discouraged workers,and a substantial number that are long term unemployed who when benefits run out, etc, just tend to disappear with respect to the statistics.

If the economy weakens, more and more workers drop out of the "official" workforce, and as "discouraged workers" don't count, so the "official rate" does not change much.

At the other end, if the economy were to get a real spurt of actual job growth, a lot of formerly discouraged workers would start looking again, so any change in the official unemployment rate wold be strongly masked by growth in the size of the workforce.

Either way, the 9.1% does not move very much either way.....

The "real" number we should be looking at it workforce participation, and the total number of jobs.

It is a good thing that Obama passed his $880 Billion stimulus package, or the US unemployment rate might have gone over 8% if he hadn't.

[Ban my account ffs!]

Right now the "headline number" (ie 9.1%) is pretty much meanngless.

The current situation is such that the number will not move very far in either direction from 9% or so.

There are currently a huge number of discouraged workers,and a substantial number that are long term unemployed who when benefits run out, etc, just tend to disappear with respect to the statistics.

If the economy weakens, more and more workers drop out of the "official" workforce, and as "discouraged workers" don't count, so the "official rate" does not change much.

At the other end, if the economy were to get a real spurt of actual job growth, a lot of formerly discouraged workers would start looking again, so any change in the official unemployment rate wold be strongly masked by growth in the size of the workforce.

Either way, the 9.1% does not move very much either way.....

The "real" number we should be looking at it workforce participation, and the total number of jobs.

It is a good thing that Obama passed his $880 Billion stimulus package, or the US unemployment rate might have gone over 8% if he hadn't.

If we just cut the top tax rate to 35%, it'll surely spur job creation.