The New Normal: 7.8% Unemployment + 14.5% Underemployment

Tyler Durden is not really his name and he's not really my friend, but I so like to start these quotes by saying, "My friend Tyler Durdern writes..." as his opinion is the closest thing to trustworthy I can find in today's news "market."

 

... BLS reports that 155,000 Jobs were added in December, right on top of the 156,000 expected, and in line with the number needed to keep up with the growth in the population, or at least the Old Normal growth - in the New Normal only handouts matter.

The unemployment rate was 7.8%, vs the 7.7% expected: who else is surprised that the rate is now rising with Obama reelected and when a lower unemployment rate means an earlier end to QE4EVA? The November unemployment rate was revised from 7.7% to 7.8%, just so headlines can proclaim the rate was unchanged, even though it was fractions away from a 7.9% print, compared to November initial 7.7%.

According to the household survey 191,000 jobs were added. Average hourly earnings for all employees rose 0.3% in December from November, compared to the 0.2% expected.

The confusion continue[s] as the BLS reports retail jobs were mysterioualy down by 19,000 even as every retailer announced it was hiring the kitchen sink, while manufacturing jobs supposedly rose by 25,000 while the ADP report reported 6 months of reductions in a row.

Construction jobs increased by 30,000. The Underemployment rate, U-6, remains steady at 14.5%. ADP, which will certainly be revised lower now, remains a farce. . . . 

 

See also DailyJobCuts.com for

December's layoffs, bankruptcies and business closures.

 

 

Oh, and you might be interested to know that

“Half or more of excess U.S. unemployment -- the extent to which current joblessness exceeds the full employment level -- is attributable to currency manipulation by foreign governments”  

... according to economists Bergsten and Gagnon, by way of Bloomberg.

 

That is all.

Comments

[Mannie Sherberg]

The numbers are bad -- and almost certain to get worse. We're in for four more years of pain. But you'd never know it from the photos of Obama capering and cavorting in the Hawaiian sunshine. What's really noteworthy in this post is the brazen in-your-face pictures of a president who seems determined to advertise his own sybaritic lifestyle at a time when more and more of his fellow citizens -- including black citizens -- are finding it hard to make ends meet. This goes beyond ordinary hedonism and voluptuousity; this is a case of "rubbing it in" -- of flaunting, swaggering, strutting one's stuff. One would think the president of the United States is beyond such exhibitionism. One would be wrong.