MAY JOBS REPORT DISASTER: UNEMPLOYMENT HITS 9.1%

As a follow-up to several of my posts:

• THE SCARIEST JOBS CHART EVER
• Thoughts from an Unemployed Professional

Here is the current US economic  situation as of today…  There is no joy in Mudville!

It’s Friday, June 3^rd, the end of week 23 and the May jobs report is out.  As others have said, it is a disaster!  Briefly:

•  The unemployment rate is now 9.1%, but the average work week has risen from 34.3 to 34.4 hours per week.  Average hourly earnings grew 0.3% vs. expectations of 0.2%.  This is more evidence that additional people are not being hired; existing workers are
  worked harder!
• There were just 54,000 new jobs created in May, 2011.  The forecast was 154,000 – three times reality.  I need to get a set of those rose-colored glasses that they wear in Washington DC.  (Along with one of those white fedoras that Mat Lauer sported in Rome this week!)
• Private sector jobs?   No joy; just 83,000 jobs were created and again, way below expectations.
• Manufacturing employment went down 5,000 jobs.  This is the very sector we need to pull us out of this longest-running recession in modern times!

You can read the full Bureau of Labor Statistic report, ‘THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION — MAY 2011’ here.

You can read Joe Weisenthal’s excellent report, May Jobs Report Disaster – Unemployment reaches 9.1% in Business Insider.

From my side of the peninsula, a double dip recession is inevitable!  Mind you that I am no economist but common sense tells me that with interest rates near zero (no chance of lowering them further) and the fact that almost half of the current mortgages in many areas of our country are ‘underwater’, and manufacturing jobs gone for good, how can you come up with any other conclusion?

If you have any money available for investment, buy gold or silver.  I’d love to tell you to get back into the stock or bond markets, (futures are sliding hard on the news today), I just can’t in good conscience tell you to do anything else!

What a mess!

Cliff

THE SCARIEST JOBS CHART EVER

This morning’s announcement that February Employment Report: 192,000 Jobs, 8.9% Unemployment Rate is small comfort to those who are working part-time jobs because they can’t find full-time employment, or who have been unemployed for more than 26 weeks! “With yesterday’s jobs report, it’s time once again to remind you how badly this recovery has lagged every other recovery when it comes to jobs”. ~ Joe Weisenthal.

I ran across a chart that depicted the ‘Percent Job Losses’ situation since World War Two that really scared the hell out of me!  It clearly describes the current situation and provides evidence about why the jobs will not be coming back any time soon.

As I discussed in a earlier post, The Jobs are NOT Back.  This new evidence ‘opens the kimono’ and points out that the jobless situation will not be ameliorated in the near future.  Take a close look at today’s photo, provided to me by CalculatedRiskBlog.com, via Joe Weisenthal. As he says, “In terms of lost payroll jobs, the 2007 recession is by far the worst since WWII, and the “recovery” for payroll jobs is one of the slowest.”

In terms of the long-term unemployed, 27 weeks or longer, this graph shows the number of workers unemployed for 27 weeks or more.  From Joe, “According to the BLS, there are 5.993 million workers who have been unemployed for more than 26 weeks and still want a job. This was down from 6.21 million in January. This is still very high.”

In terms of the underemployed, there has been a small improvement, but the numbers are still well north of the 8,200,000 currently underemployed.  This is giving employers pause, as they are always afraid that if a highly qualified applicant applies for a position the utilized 25% of their potential, these unfortunate folks (the writer included) will not be hired.  In my case, multiple degrees are not helping me as I apply for a position at your local OfficeMax!

As we continue to see the all-out attack on the middle class in this country, we should be very careful who we vote into office in the coming short-term! As we compete in the frenetic global economy, even a small misstep will doom us as surely as will a rampant influx of illegal aliens, or a nut-job from across the sea that brings their grievances to our soil.

We live in dangerous, uncertain times.  Stay focused on doing what is right for our country and countrymen (women)!

Cliff

Read more: http://tiny.cc/30hky

Photo Credit: Via Calculated Risk:

Thoughts from an Unemployed Professional

Another departure from our core thread today.  Work on Views from Sandhausen continues on schedule and I am doing ancillary work.  I’m adding a “Fan Page” to Facebook and I’m working through Walt’s last suggested learning topic for me. 

As I sit here in my little writing area, with CNN droning on in the background, along comes a Presidential address at a Chrysler Transmission plant.  Apparently, life is good for them and they have hired a few workers back – after two years!  As I listen to President Obama bloviate about “Goodness and Light”, I get furious.  You see, the Jobs are NOT back for this unemployed professional!  I am pulling for him to be successful; I believed in his message of Change, and I hated Bush and his swarmy, lying cohorts!

 Well friends, I wrote an article for Suite101.com and I became quite angry.  I asked anyone that might trip across this insignificant article to tell their friends about this story.  Suite101.com declined to publish the article.  That’s fine.  I will publish it here.  Please excuse my vitriol!

My anger has just been renewed by Keith Olbermann’s announcement this evening that corporate profits, based on third quarter results, will total $1.66 TRILLION!  Where are the jobs?

Thoughts from an Unemployed Senior Professional: The Jobs are NOT BACK!

Excerpt

Let the President know: The Jobs AREN’T Back! Post on Facebook, Twitter to CBS, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, & NBC.  Email to your local newspaper, post it on bulletin boards-Shout from the rooftops!

 They say that you should write what you know.  What I know is that I want to work, am in excellent health, and that I am wasting away because I am not working.  Let me tell you a story.

Background

Let me start by stating that I have been extremely fortunate in my life, and for that I am eternally grateful!  I was blessed by meeting and marrying and spending 47 glorious years with a soul mate that was everything to me; and me to her.  We came from good, middle class backgrounds; both had parents that were well-educated and very successful.  I was an only child, but I also have two half-sisters from my father’s previous marriage.  My wife Lynn was blessed with four sisters and a very large family.

We were both bright people, and we exercised the brains that God gave us every day.  I was fortunate to be in the upper 1% of the population; Lynn in the 3%.  For me, this was a unifying and driving force in my life!  It affected my attitude towards life and the challenges that come with life.  My attitude is, if I can’t handle this situation, it is my fault; I don’t like to fail.  Our Sons were hereditarily blessed, both highly successful in their chosen careers.

Continuous Learning

We both were well-educated, and we both continued our education throughout our lives.  I obtained a second degree at the dawn of this century, Lynn went back to school when she was 30 and graduated as class valedictorian!  We contributed to our community and were both avid readers; my choice of weapon was books and later, the Internet.  Lynn’s source of choice was through printed news and some television (when you could trust the television news).  She avidly read ten papers (online) every day, in the latter years of her too short life. 

Fortune 100 Professional

I chose the correct Fortune 100 Company, even prior to my graduation from my first university.  I was hired into Corporate Engineering, as an assistant to a Project Manager.  We were charged with building our share of new, as well as expanded facilities, around the world.  I learned an awful lot in that position.  After ten years I moved to the newly formed Computer-Aided Design and Drafting section of Engineering.  I moved through the ranks, ultimately managing that part of Engineering after five years.  As a Manager and Principal Engineer I interacted with our Research and Development division. I was eventually invited to join them.  In eight years I managed teams that deployed Engineering technology around the globe.  I managed programming teams that moved our tire design software from mainframes, to intelligent workstations, to PC’s.  As a Business leader I led and shepherded silo organizations to work together in a Matrix Management structure – thought our headquarters and R&D complexes.

Luxembourg Meeting

I also criticized our company’s Year 2000 program to our CIO.  After an interesting exchange between the two of us, I was asked to take over Y2K Corporate Program Management responsibility, globally.  During three years a 700 person global team successfully defeated that very real threat.  During the last six months, I also manage the global team that integrated our new acquisition (European Tire maker), across all Information Technology interfaces.  I was asked to move to Europe to integrate e-commerce across our 33 countries in Europe.  Four highly successful major initiatives later, we retired.

In my spare time I have presented to technical groups around the world, I am published internationally and have served on two Editorial Review Boards at two major publications.  My LinkedIn profile will give you the rest of the story, as will my professional website. 

I Can’t Get a Job!

I can’t get a Job.  I am vibrant, healthy, sharp, creative and absolutely open to anything; I can’t get a Job! I look like I am fifty, I am fit and on my ideal weight.  The reason that I am writing this article today is because I am listening to President Obama speak at a rebounding Chrysler manufacturing plant.

The Jobs Aren’t Back

He says the “Jobs are Back”!   Well I have news for you my friend; No they are NOT! 

This is not just my opinion.  When a person of my background, education, experience, and drive, can’t find a suitable position after two years of constant looking, they are NOT back.  I have hired two professional career counselors, at thousands of dollars each. I have buffed and fluffed, and kept current on all my technologies.  I am a Certified IT Professional!  I worked for a software firm for three months, trying to sell software in the face of high operation costs and a declining economy. For four months, I worked as a Director of Business Development, Sales and Marketing for my own division of a high-end architectural firm in one of the best markets in the world, Naples, Florida.  We sold custom designed plans that were later converted into high-end spec home plans for sale to builders and individuals, as the bottom fell out of the real estate market.  

I have aggressively followed 42 Job boards, both technical and Executive – exploring every possibility.  I have follow-up on every lead, every interview.  Recently I have applied to every big-box store in the area (and out of the area).  Well, as you can image, I am now 64 years old; things aren’t looking good. 

Recently, I have taken up writing, something that I have done all of my life.  Suite101.com was good enough to let me join them as a freelance author.  I am finishing my second book: Views from Sandhausen: Experiences from a Foreign Service Assignment.  I have also formed my publishing company.  I can’t think of a single thing that I’ve missed.  I’m as unemployed as I was two years ago.

Tell CBS, NBC, ABC, MSNBC, CNN – The Jobs Aren’t Back

My friends please do this for me.  Tell your friends about this sad story; post it on your Facebook page, Twitter it to CBS, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, and others.  Email the link to your local newspaper, tell your friends, post it on bulletin boards; Let this President know that The Jobs ARE NOT Back!

 References and Challenge:

 www.signonsandiego.com “Presidential Address in KOKOMO, In. (November 23, 2010)

 www.mnheadhunter.com “The Great Recession: December 2007 To June Of 2009” (November 23, 2010)

Please Tweet it, Facebook it, LinkedIn it, Twitter it as http://wp.me/pZdHT-8c   The Jobs are Not Back! #CBS  #ABC #NBC #CNN #FOX #MSNBC #KeithOlbermann #Maddow )

We have to get this sordid story out.  I even flagged it to Fox.  I’m damned fed up and I’m not going to take it anymore!

 Cliff

Tags:

Unemployment benefits, job hunting, labor economics, business, business and economy, job search, employment, unemployment, personal debt management, personal budget/finance, business & finance, personal debt management, personal budgeting/finance, business & finance, CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX.