If there’s a silver lining in the September Jobs report I can’t find it:
U.S. employers cut a deeper-than-expected 263,000 jobs in September, lifting the unemployment rate to 9.8 percent, according to a government report on Friday that fueled fears the weak labor market could undermine economic recovery.
The Labor Department said the unemployment rate was the highest since June 1983 and payrolls had now dropped for 21 consecutive months.
Analysts polled by Reuters had expected non-farm payrolls to drop 180,000 in September and the unemployment rate to rise to 9.8 percent from 9.7 percent the prior month. The poll was conducted before reports, including regional manufacturing surveys, showed some deterioration in employment measures.
The government revised job losses for July and August to show 13,000 more jobs lost than previously reported. Preliminary annual benchmark revisions, released together with September’s employment report showed that total non-farm payroll employment for March would have to be revised down about 824,000.
There’s really no good news here… In previous months there have been little signs of hope but there aren’t any this month. Everything, hours worked, weekly wages etc. are head down. The only thing going up is unemployment. In fact the male unemployment rate at its highest level since the Great Depression!
Truth be told it’s worse than you think when you add in laid-off workers who have settled for part-time work or who have given up looking for work, the unemployment rate is 17 percent.
You see the raw data here.