Members of the Obama administration must have let out a big sigh of relief today when the employment report came out. While the numbers are anything but sustainable, they certainly aren't as bad as August when no jobs were added. The current report states that September saw an increase of 103,000 new jobs...but that's not exactly true.
I don't know about you, but I wouldn't define a worker returning to his/her job as a NEW job. The job was already there -- it was just put on hold. It smacks of creative accounting to define such a job as new.
If we remove those 45,000 jobs from the equation, then a) the information sector LOST 11,000 jobs and b) the overall increase was a pitiful 58,000.
It should be obvious to anyone paying attention that those 45,000 jobs were included for one reason and one reason only: It made an ugly employment reality a little less ugly. It provides the president and his administration with some talking points. They can point to the false number to suggest we are making slow headway. Obama can say, "We are not where we want to be at yet, but look at that 6-figure number. WHEEEEE!"
Sectors with employment increases in September included professional and business services (+48,000), health care and social assistance (+40,800), information (+34,000, which includes about 45,000 returning Verizon strikers), and construction (+26,000). Sectors with employment declines included government (-34,000) and manufacturing (-13,000).What I want you to focus on is the information sector. According to the report, it is one of the four sectors showing an increase of new jobs. To produce this increase, 45,000 returning strikers were included in the total.
I don't know about you, but I wouldn't define a worker returning to his/her job as a NEW job. The job was already there -- it was just put on hold. It smacks of creative accounting to define such a job as new.
If we remove those 45,000 jobs from the equation, then a) the information sector LOST 11,000 jobs and b) the overall increase was a pitiful 58,000.
It should be obvious to anyone paying attention that those 45,000 jobs were included for one reason and one reason only: It made an ugly employment reality a little less ugly. It provides the president and his administration with some talking points. They can point to the false number to suggest we are making slow headway. Obama can say, "We are not where we want to be at yet, but look at that 6-figure number. WHEEEEE!"
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