U.S. Still Down 6 Million Jobs

March 13, 2012

Real Money

By Sarah Morgan

“Don’t believe the hype that the economy is getting better.  It’s not.  A lot of people are still out of work.”  –KTRN

The stock market has recovered its losses since hitting bottom three years ago today. But despite gains in employment during that same stretch, America is still down six million jobs, data shows.

The economy added 227,000 jobs in February, more than the 204,000 economists expected, the Labor Department reported this morning. The unemployment rate remained unchanged at 8.3% from last month. But while the economy has added more than 200,000 jobs for three straight months, the damage to employment done by the Great Recession is still far from repaired.

Between December 2007, when the recession officially started, and February 2010, when the Labor Department’s reports show employment hit bottom, the economy lost more than eight million jobs. Between then and now, we’ve added back more than two million jobs. With that big of a gap yet to fill, it’s extremely unlikely the unemployment rate will fall to a more “normal,” pre-crisis level of 6% by the end of this year, says Robert Johnson, the associate director of economic analysis at Morningstar. A rate below 8% — last seen in January 2009 — is possible by the end of the year, however, Johnson says.

Click here for the full report.

Private Sector Adds Jobs, but Unemployment Stubborn

November 4, 2011

The Wall Street Journal

By LUCA DI LEO And JOSH MITCHELL

U.S. companies kept adding workers to their payrolls in October, data for the previous two months were revised higher and the unemployment rate ticked lower. But the rate remains elevated and job creation is too slow to bring it down quickly.

The government’s broadest snapshot of the labor market showed the U.S. economy created 80,000 jobs in October. The Labor Department said the private sector added 104,000 positions, which was partly offset by continued cuts at all levels of government.

Payrolls data for the previous two months were revised up by a total of 102,000 to show 158,000 jobs were added in September and 104,000 jobs in August.

However, highlighting the persistent weakness of the labor market, the unemployment rate — which is obtained from a separate household survey — fell only to 9.0% from 9.1% in September.

The slow economic recovery is still inflicting pain on many Americans unable to find work, including some who find themselves unemployed for the first time.

Connie Benefield is one of them. The 58-year-old was among about a dozen workers laid off in September from an apparel maker in her home town of Hood River, Ore., after 18 years at the company, most recently as an administrative support staffer, she said.

Ms. Benefield has since applied to about half a dozen employers in the town of roughly 7,000, but she’s gotten no response. When she went for help at a local job assistance center, the rooms were full with unemployed people, many of them years younger than her.

“There were so many people there looking for work. And it just made me think, there’s really going to be a competition here,” Ms. Benefield said.

“This is the first time in my life I’ve had to go through this. I’ve always had a job,” she added. She said she is about to put her house on the market and is considering moving to Portland, which is 60 miles west, in hopes of finding more opportunities. She’s barely able to pay her bills with her unemployment checks, she said. “If I could make it to spring, that would surprise me,” Ms. Benefield said.

Her former coworker, 31-year-old Melissa Hagel, fared better after also being laid off from the company. Ms. Hagel said that soon after being laid off, a friend put her in touch with someone at a local technology firm that specializes in unmanned aircraft, and she was offered a job as a production planner last month.

Click here for the full report from The Wall Street Journal.

U.S. Adds 103,000 New Jobs In September, But Unemployment Rate Stays The Same

October 7th, 2011

The Huffington Post

By: Lucia Mutikani

Employment grew more than expected in September and job gains for the prior months were revised higher, according to a government report on Friday that could ease fears the economy was heading into recession.

Nonfarm payrolls rose 103,000 the Labor Department said on Friday, while the unemployment rate held steady at 9.1 percent as an increase in household employment offset a rise in the participation rate.

Part of September’s relative strength reflected the return of 45,000 Verizon Communications workers who had dropped off payrolls in August due to a strike. Excluding those workers, payrolls increased by 58,000.

The tenor of the report was strengthened by revisions that showed 99,000 more jobs added in July and August than initially reported. In addition, hourly earnings rebounded and the average work week rose.

Economists had expected nonfarm employment to increase 60,000 last month and the jobless rate to hold steady at 9.1 percent.

The government’s closely followed employment report was another sign that the world’s largest economy was likely to skirt a recession despite weakness over the summer.

Private employment increased 137,000 last month, an acceleration from August’s meager 42,000 count. But government payrolls fell 34,000 as employment at the local government level fell 35,000 and the Postal Service shed 5,000 positions.

The nation’s weak labor market has posed a critical challenge for President Barack Obama, who is gearing up for a tough reelection battle in November 2012. Obama on Thursday used a news conference to press for measures to spur jobs growth that face uncertain prospects in Congress.

Recent reports on manufacturing, business spending and auto sales suggest the economy fared better in the third quarter after growing at an anemic 1.3 percent annual pace in the April-June period.

But some economists are warning Europe’s debt crisis threatens to all but derail the U.S. recovery.

And while third-quarter growth is expected to top a 2 percent annualized pace, that is still too slow to make a dent in the high unemployment rate.

The economy needs to grow by at least a 2.5 percent rate, with payrolls expanding by 150,000 positions a month, to keep the jobless rate from rising.

JOBS ELUDE RECOVERY

The U.S. central bank last month announced new steps to stimulate the economy by pushing long-term borrowing costs even lower by shifting assets on its balance sheet.

Uncertainty over the economic outlook, which continues to be muddied by acrimony in Washington over budget policy and by Europe’s inability to get to grips with its debt crisis, is making businesses reluctant to hire.

There were a few bright spots in the payrolls report. Hourly earnings rose four cents after falling four cents in August.

An improvement in income is crucial for consumer spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of U.S. economic activity.

Incomes dropped in August for the first time since October 2009, curbing spending and pushing savings to the lowest level in more than 1-1/2 years.

Manufacturing shed 13,000 jobs last month, extending August’s decline of 4,000. Health care added 40,800 jobs. The sector has consistently added jobs as the baby boomers demand more health care services.

Temporary help increased 19.400, slightly less than the previous month’s gain.

Click here for the full report from The Huffington Post

Unemployment Claims Edge Up Amid Wobbly Economy

October 6, 2011

CNBC

By: Reuters

New U.S. claims for unemployment benefits rose less than expected last week, according to a government report on Thursday that hinted at an improvement in labor market conditions.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits climbed 6,000 to a seasonally adjusted 401,000, the Labor Department said, from a revised 395,000 the prior week.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims rising to 410,000 from the previously reported 391,000.

The data falls outside the survey period for the government’s closely watched employment report for September, which will be released on Friday.

Nonfarm payrolls likely increased 60,000 last month, according to a Reuters survey, after being flat in August. The anticipated gain in nonfarm employment will mostly reflect the return of 45,000 striking Verizon Communications workers to payrolls.

The jobless rate is seen steady at 9.1 percent.

A Labor Department official said there were no special factors influencing the claims report and there was nothing unusual in the state level data.

Difficulties adjusting first-time applications for seasonal fluctuations had resulted in a big drop the previous week. Despite the rise in claims last week, they remained close to the 400,000 mark, which economists usually associate with some improvement in the labor market.

The weak labor market is the Achilles heel of the recovery, which is under threat from the debt crisis in Europe. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said on Tuesday the economy was “close to faltering” and reiterated the U.S. central bank’s commitment to take additional steps to aid growth.

Last week, the four-week moving average of claims, considered a better measure of labor market trends, fell 4,000 to 414,000.

The number of people still receiving benefits under regular state programs after an initial week of aid dropped 52,000 to 3.70 million in the week ended Sept. 24. That was the lowest level since July.

Economists had expected so-called continuing claims to dip to 3.72 million from 3.73 million the previous week.

The number of Americans on emergency unemployment benefits fell 9,188 to 3.03 million in the week ended Sept. 17, the latest week for which data is available.

A total of 6.86 million people were claiming unemployment benefits during that period under all programs, down 123,009 from the prior week.

Click here for the full report from USA Today

Fewer People Applied For Unemployment Benefits

September 30, 2011

Fox News

The number of people seeking unemployment benefits fell sharply last week, an encouraging sign that layoffs are easing.

The Labor Department says that weekly applications dropped 37,000 to a seasonally adjusted 391,000, the lowest level since April 2. It’s the first time applications have fallen below 400,000 since Aug. 6.

Applications typically need to fall below 375,000 to signal substantial job growth. They haven’t been that low since February.

A Labor Department spokesman said some of the drop was due to technical difficulties related to seasonally adjusting the figures. The spokesman said some states also reported higher applications in previous weeks due to Hurricane Irene.

The four-week average, a less volatile measure, fell to 417,000, the first drop in six weeks.

Despite the signs of improvement, the job market remains sluggish.

Many businesses have pulled back on hiring in the past few months as the economy has weakened. Consumers are reluctant to spend, with unemployment high, wages stagnant, and gas prices at about $3.50 a gallon.

Consumer confidence plunged in August to recessionary levels, after lawmakers battled over raising the government’s borrowing limit and Standard & Poor’s cut its rating on long-term U.S. debt. That sent the stock market sharply lower, which hurts consumers’ ability to spend.

Retail sales were flat in August, a sign the turmoil caused consumers to pull back.

Businesses also held off on hiring. Employers added no net jobs in August, the worst showing in almost a year. The unemployment rate was stuck at 9.1 percent for the second straight month.

Investors also worried last week that Europe won’t be able to prevent Greece from defaulting and worsening the region’s debt crisis. That sent the U.S. stock market down 6.4 percent, its biggest weekly loss since October 2008, in the midst of the financial crisis.

If Greece defaults, that could destabilize other indebted countries, such as Portugal, Ireland and Italy. It could also harm many of Europe’s banks, which own Greek debt.

If European banks hoard cash to make up for their losses and stop lending to their U.S. counterparts, that could restrict credit in the United States and slow the economy. And a financial crisis in Europe would reduce U.S. companies’ exports and sales to the region.

The slow growth and turmoil have raised fears that the U.S. economy could enter another recession. Some economists put the odds as high as 40 percent.

The economy barely grew in the first six months of this year. Still, economists expect growth will improve a bit in the second half, to 1.5 percent to 2 percent. But that’s not enough to spur much hiring and won’t feel much better than a recession to most Americans.

The latest sign of a weak job market came Wednesday, when the Conference Board said its index of online help-wanted ads fell by 1.1 percent to 3.95 million. Openings have fallen by about 500,000 in the past six months, the group said, after jumping by more than 750,000 in the first three months of the year.

Instead of hiring, companies are spending on new equipment. A key measure of business investment plans rose 1.1 percent in August, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. Companies ordered more machinery, computers and communications equipment.

That’s a good sign, because it shows that businesses are sticking with their investment plans, despite recent signs of economic weakness.

Last week, the Federal Reserve took its latest step to boost the economy. It said it will swap $400 billion of short-term Treasury securities into longer-term notes and bonds. The central bank said it will also reinvest the proceeds from its maturing mortgage-backed securities into new mortgage-backed bonds. Both steps should reduce mortgage rates.

Click here for the full report from Fox News

Unemployment Rate Looks Much Lower Than It Actually Is

September 7th, 2011

The Huffington Post

By: Paul Wiseman and Christopher Leonard

The job market is even worse than the 9.1 percent unemployment rate suggests.

America’s 14 million unemployed aren’t competing just with each other. They must also contend with 8.8 million other people not counted as unemployed – part-timers who want full-time work.

When consumer demand picks up, companies will likely boost the hours of their part-timers before they add jobs, economists say. It means they have room to expand without hiring.

And the unemployed will face another source of competition once the economy improves: Roughly 2.6 million people who aren’t counted as unemployed because they’ve stopped looking for work. Once they start looking again, they’ll be classified as unemployed. And the unemployment rate could rise.

Intensified competition for jobs means unemployment could exceed its historic norm of 5 percent to 6 percent for several more years. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office expects the rate to exceed 8 percent until 2014. The White House predicts it will average 9 percent next year, when President Barack Obama runs for re-election.

The jobs crisis has led Obama to schedule a major speech Thursday night to propose steps to stimulate hiring. Republican presidential candidates will likely confront the issue in a debate the night before.

The back-to-back events will come days after the government said employers added zero net jobs in August. The monthly jobs report, arriving three days before Labor Day, was the weakest since September 2010.

Combined, the 14 million officially unemployed; the “underemployed” part-timers who want full-time work; and “discouraged” people who have stopped looking make up 16.2 percent of working-age Americans.

The Labor Department compiles the figure to assess how many people want full-time work and can’t find it – a number the unemployment rate alone doesn’t capture.

In a healthy economy, this broader measure of unemployment stays below 10 percent. Since the Great Recession officially ended more than two years ago, the rate has been 15 percent or more.

The proportion of the work force made up of the frustrated part-timers has risen faster than unemployment has since the recession began in December 2007.

That’s because many companies slashed workers’ hours after the recession hit. If they restored all those lost hours to their existing staff, they’d add enough hours to equal about 950,000 full-time jobs, according to calculations by Heidi Shierholz, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute.

That’s without having to hire a single employee.

No one expects every company to delay hiring until every part-timer is working full time. But economists expect job growth to stay weak for two or three more years in part because of how many frustrated part-timers want to work full time.

And because employers are still reluctant to increase hours for part-timers, “hiring is really a long way off,” says Christine Riordan, a policy analyst at the National Employment Law Project. In August, employees of private companies worked fewer hours than in July.

Some groups are disproportionately represented among the broader category of unemployment that includes underemployed and discouraged workers. More than 26 percent of African Americans, for example, and nearly 22 percent of Hispanics are in this category. The figure for whites is less than 15 percent. Women are more likely than men to be in this group.

Among the Americans frustrated with part-time work is Ryan McGrath, 26. In October, he returned from managing a hotel project in Uruguay. He’s been unable to find full-time work. So he’s been freelancing as a website designer for small businesses in the Chicago area.

Some weeks he’s busy and making money. Other times he struggles. He’s living at home, and sometimes he has to borrow $50 from his father to pay bills. He’s applied for “a million jobs.”

“You go to all these interviews for entry-level positions, and you lose out every time,” he says.

Nationally, 4.5 unemployed people, on average, are competing for each job opening. In a healthy economy, the average is about two per opening.

Facing rejection, millions give up and stop looking for jobs.

Norman Spaulding, 54, quit his job as a truck driver two years ago because he needed work that would let him care for his disabled 13-year-old daughter.

But after repeated rejections, Spaulding concluded a few weeks ago that the cost of driving to visit potential employers wasn’t worth the expense. He suspended his job hunt.

He and his family are getting by on his daughter’s disability check from Social Security. They’re living in a trailer park on Texas’ Gulf Coast.

“It costs more to look than we have to spend,” he says.

Eventually, lots of Americans like Spaulding will start looking for jobs again. If those work-force dropouts had been counted as unemployed, August’s unemployment rate would have been 10.6 percent instead of 9.1 percent.

Emma Draper, 23, lost her public relations job this summer. To pay the rent on her Washington apartment, she’s working part time at the retailer South Moon Under. She’s selling $120 Ralph Lauren swimsuits and other trendy clothes.

Her search for full-time work has been discouraging. Employers don’t call back for months, if ever.

“You’re basically on their timeline,” Draper says. “It’s really hard to find a job unless you know somebody who can give you an inside edge.”

Retailers, in particular, favor part-timers. They value the flexibility of being able to tap extra workers during peak sales times without being overstaffed during lulls. Some use software to precisely match their staffing levels with customer traffic. It holds down their expenses.

“They know up to the minute how many people they need,” says Carrie Gleason of the Retail Action Project, which advocates better working conditions for retail workers. “It’s almost created a contingent work force.”

Draper appreciates her part-time retail job, and not just because it helps pay the bills. It takes her mind off the frustration of searching for full-time work.

“Right now, finding a job is my job,” she says. “If that was the only thing I had to do, I’d be going insane. There is only so much time you can sit at your computer, sending out resumes.”

Click here for the full report from The Huffington Post

U.S. Economy Fails to Add Jobs

September 2nd, 2011

The Wall Street Journal

By: Luca Di Leo and Jeff Bater

The U.S. economy failed to add jobs for the first time in almost a year, raising the odds of a return to recession and putting more pressure on President Barack Obama and the Federal Reserve to revive a moribund labor market.

Nonfarm payrolls were unchanged last month—the worst result since a small decline in September 2010—as the government sector continued to shed jobs, the Labor Department said Friday. The private sector added only 17,000 jobs.

About 45,000 telecom jobs were off company payrolls because of a strike at Verizon Communications Inc., contributing to the worst private-sector performance since February 2010. But payrolls were weak even without the one-off Verizon impact.

Data for the previous two months were revised down by a total 58,000 to show payroll increases of 85,000 jobs in July and only 20,000 in June, the government report showed.

The unemployment rate, which is obtained from a separate household survey, was unchanged at 9.1% last month. About 14 million Americans who would like to work can’t get a job.

And the average private-sector workweek fell to 34.2 hours from 34.3 hours, a sign of a greater slowdown in activity than economists had expected.

The results were worse than expected, and stocks fell on the news. Treasury prices rose, pushing yields down. Economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires had forecast payrolls would rise by 80,000 last month, with the unemployment rate unchanged.

Citing the nation’s wobbly recovery, Mr. Obama on Friday asked the Environmental Protection Agency to withdraw a proposed regulation for ozone air-quality standards. Republicans and industry groups have attacked the air-quality rule for months, saying it could cost tens of billions of dollars a year or more and kill thousands of jobs.

Mr. Obama is due to unveil new measures Thursday aimed at resuscitating the jobs market, but budget constraints and sharp divisions between Democrats and Republicans make it unlikely Congress will pass a substantive package. The Federal Reserve may therefore end up taking new steps to try to spur growth. The economy slowed sharply in the first half, heightening concerns it could fall back into recession only two years after the end of the severe downturn of 2008 and 2009.

The jobs report is worrying because it is in line with the weak trend seen in recent months, but it doesn’t spell recession yet, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics said in an interview Friday.

Keith Hall said that, while the zero payroll figure for last month “is a little bit shocking,” the more concerning aspect is that job gains have only averaged 40,000 over the past four months. Monthly employment gains of at least 130,000 are likely needed just to keep the unemployment rate steady, he warned.

In Friday’s report, several major industries showed weakness beyond the 48,000 employment decline in the information industry, which includes telecom jobs.

Manufacturing, a big creator of jobs for most of the recovery, saw employment decline by 3,000 in August. The battered construction sector showed 5,000 job losses last month. The housing sector remains a big drag on the economy. The retail sector lost nearly 8,000 jobs.

Meanwhile, government employment continued to fall—by 17,000—for the 10th month in a row. Government jobs are expected to continue struggling as administrations try to cut the huge budget gaps accumulated to fight the recession.

Facing re-election in just over a year, Mr. Obama is next week expected to call for more investments in the country’s creaking infrastructure and a possible extension to the 2011 payroll-tax credit to boost consumer spending. But Republican opposition to more spending makes the president’s job harder. The White House Thursday downgraded its outlook for the economy, saying unemployment could still be at 9% in 2012.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke a week ago said the nation’s challenges—including long-term unemployment and weakness in housing—are largely beyond the central bank’s control, indicating it is mainly up to Mr. Obama and Congress to fix the economy. Even so, the Fed is likely to step in if it feels the economy is at risk because of government paralysis. Some officials signaled readiness to enact a third round of the Fed’s controversial asset purchases at their latest meeting Aug. 9.

With fiscal policy options “locked up as we roll into an election year, Ben Bernanke will come under tremendous pressure to act,” said Jason Schenker, president of forecasting company Prestige economics.

The jobs report Friday showed 42.9% of unemployed Americans, or six million people, were out of work for more than six months. The longer someone is without a job, the harder it is to find work.

Yet the fact that a large number of Americans have been out of work for several months means that more expansive monetary policy won’t be as effective in helping the labor market, three economists argue in a new paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.

“After a long period of unemployment, affected workers may become effectively unemployable,” says the paper, by Andreas Hornstein, Thomas A. Lubik and Jessie Romero. “This suggests that the natural rate of unemployment may have increased.”

Some said the news wasn’t altogether unexpected. “In summary, this report is not good news, but it is not inconsistent with other recent indicators,” said Chad Moutray, chief economist for the National Association of Manufacturers, in a statement. He said the jobs report would “embolden those who argue for new initiatives to stimulate economic growth.”

Click here for the full report from The Wall Street Journal

One In Five Recent Graduates Is Out Of Work

July 11, 2011

National Journal

By Jim Tankersley

Here’s a fact that should give economists—and maybe President Obama’s political team—heartburn: Two years after the Great Recession officially ended, job prospects for young Americans remain historically grim. More than 17 percent of 16-to-24-year-olds who are looking for work can’t find a job, a rate that is close to a 30-year high. The employment-to-population ratio for that demographic—the percentage of young people who are working—has plunged to 45 percent. That’s the lowest level since the Labor Department began tracking the data in 1948. Taken together, the numbers suggest that the U.S. job market is struggling mightily to bring its next generation of workers into the fold.

This is a dangerous proposition, economically (for the United States as a whole) and politically (for the president).

As The Atlantic’s Don Peck wrote last year, citing a litany of research from Yale University’s Lisa Kahn, college graduates who enter the labor force during a recession make significantly less money—in their first year and over the course of their careers—than grads who walk into an economic boom. Workers stuck in the unemployment line for an extended period risk watching their skills atrophy and face increasing difficulty finding new jobs. That’s particularly true, though, for people waiting and waiting and waiting to land their first job. The longer a whole batch of fledgling workers sits waiting to be hired, the more the economy risks losing young employees with valuable, high-end skills at a time when global competition is increasingly fierce.

Snowballing youth unemployment feeds social unrest. Exhibit A is the Middle East. Exhibit B is Europe’s periphery; in such countries as Spain, Greece, and Croatia, more than one in three young people is unemployed, a problem that The Economist magazine warned this week is “as great a challenge for these governments as protecting their tottering banks and slashing their budget deficits.”

Click here to read the full article from NationalJournal.com.

 

Applications For Jobless Benefits Rise To 462,000

October 14, 2010
Associated Press
Christopher S. Rugaber

More people applied for unemployment benefits last week, the first rise in three weeks and evidence that companies are reluctant to hire in a slow economy.

Initial claims for unemployment aid rose by 13,000 to a seasonally adjusted 462,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. It was only the second rise in two months.

Jobless claims have been stuck near 450,000 all year. Few employers see much reason to create many jobs, and some are still laying off workers. Rail operator CSX Corp., for example, said Wednesday that it can lengthen its trains to handle rising shipments, reducing its need to hire more employees.

“The labor market is kind of frozen right now,” said Zach Pandl, an economist at Nomura Securities. “There’s not a lot of hiring going on, not a lot of quitting, not a lot of layoffs.”

A separate report from the Commerce Department showed the trade deficit widened in August by 8.8 percent to $46.3 billion. The gap grew because of a 2.1 jump in imports, driven by demand for foreign-made semiconductors, generators and other types of industrial machinery. Exports edged up a slight 0.2 percent.

A third report noted that prices at the wholesale level remained tame outside a sharp rise in food and energy costs. Excluding those two volatile categories, core wholesale prices rose just 0.1 percent, the Labor Department said.

The data illustrate a weak economy that is slowly recuperating more than a year after the recession officially ended. Businesses are unable to raise prices because of high unemployment that is not expected to ease for months, perhaps years.

The initial claims figure, while volatile, is considered a real-time snapshot of the job market. It is also a measure of the pace of layoffs and an indication of companies’ willingness to hire. The four-week average of claims, a less volatile measure, rose by 2,250 to 459,000 — the first increase after six consecutive declines.

Claims have fallen significantly since June 2009, the month the recession ended. First-time claims topped 600,000 at the end of that month.

But most of the improvement took place last year. Since January, claims have fluctuated around 450,000.

Cash-strapped state and local governments are cutting jobs, adding to the ranks of those out of work and likely driving up the initial claims for unemployment aid.

State and local governments shed 83,000 jobs in September. The economy lost a net total of 95,000 jobs overall and the unemployment rate remained stuck at 9.6 percent.

Local governments cut the most jobs in 28 years last month, most of them teachers and other school employees.

Private employers, meanwhile, added a net total of 64,000 jobs, about one-third what’s needed to make a dent in the unemployment rate. Pandl and other economists don’t expect hiring by companies to accelerate much from that pace this year.

Total unemployment benefit rolls, meanwhile, fell last week, most likely because many of those out of work are using up their benefits.

The number of people continuing to receive benefits fell by 112,000 to just under 4.4 million, the department said. But that doesn’t include several million people who are receiving benefits under extended programs approved by Congress.

The number of people on extended benefits dropped by about 340,000 to about 4.8 million in the week ending Sept. 25, the latest data available. All told, about 8.6 million people received unemployment aid that week.

Layoffs are continuing in some sectors. Sanofi-Aventis SA, the world’s fourth-largest drug maker, said last week that it is eliminating 1,700 jobs in its U.S. pharmaceutical business due to growing generic competition.

And insurance conglomerate Aon said Thursday that it will cut 1,500 to 1,800 jobs over the next three years as it consolidates its acquisition of Hewitt Associates, a human resources firm.

Click here for the full report from the Associated Press.

95K Jobs Lost Due to Government Layoffs

October 8, 2010
AOL News

A wave of government layoffs last month outpaced weak hiring in the private sector, pushing down the nation’s payrolls by a net total of 95,000 jobs.

The Labor Department says the unemployment rate held at 9.6 percent. The jobless rate has now topped 9.5 percent for 14 straight months, the longest stretch since the 1930s.

The private sector added 64,000 jobs, the weakest showing since June.

Local governments cut 76,000 jobs last month, most of them in education. That’s the largest cut by local governments in 28 years. And, 77,000 temporary census jobs ended in September.

Nearly 14.8 million people were unemployed last month. That’s almost 100,000 fewer than in August.

Click here for the full report from AOL News.

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