Tag Archives: unemployment

The Sky is Falling, for real this time.

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theskyisfalling

Today is my favorite time of the month. Today is August 7 and  it’s the day that the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) puts out who got fired aka the employment situation, economic news release. This is where all of the media gets the numbers that they spin. Why don’t they just provide the numbers with no commentary? I guess that would be boring. Here is my entertaining spin on the pieces of clouds that are hitting me on the head.

Nonfarm payroll employment declined by 247,000 jobs (we needed 100,000 jobs a month to continue to employ the job market BEFORE La Crisis, so don’t let the corporate people lie to you and let you think everything is ok now since last month it was higher, it’s not ok, it’s nowhere near ok.)

“Another way of looking at the above task is to determine how long it will take the nation to return to full employment — basically an economy in which everyone who wants to work can find a full-time job to match their skill set and experience. It’s no minor task: the U.S. economy has to create about 200,000 jobs per month — a roughly net 100,000 job gain over the monthly gain needed to keep unemployment from rising — for the next 5.5 years to replace the roughly 6.8 million jobs lost during the recession.” Joseph Lazzaro, Daily Finance.

Also there are now 796,000 discouraged workers up by 335,000 over the past 12 months.

And there are now five million people who have been unemployed longterm (longterm is more than 27 weeks.)

On Chart A12 section U-6 Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached   workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers.. is now 16.3%.

The Employment Situation for August is scheduled to be released on Friday,
September 4, 2009, at 8:30 a.m. (EDT).

–Edited by Browne Molyneux

The Real Number of Unemployed Nationally: 16.5 %

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I'm glad we agree, this is not a job. Pic by Steve Schwartz

I'm glad we agree, this is not a job. Pic by Steve Schwartz

Often when my friends and I talk about issues of unemployment a question comes up. How do we know if this number that we read in the paper is including everyone?

What about your friend who hasn’t had a job in two years and has just stopped looking?
What about people who work temp jobs, so they sort of have a job, but not really?
What about people who got a job at the mall during the SUPER SUMMER SALE, but then got let go?

I found a table to answer those questions.

There is a table in the Bureau of Labor and Statistics. It’s table A12. It is the Alternative Measures of Labor Underutilization.  (H/T to Jonathan Tasini of Working Life, I was actually going to work this number out the old fashioned way with pencil and paper, but you saved me time.) 

16.5% is the number of unemployed nationally if you take into the account all of things that we all wonder about in regards to true unemployment: Continue reading →

The new numbers & a list (a long one) of people who will be having a bad Xmas.

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Where is MY JOB!

Where is MY JOB!

The new unemployment rates for June 2009:

North Carolina: 11.0
Ohio: 11.1
California: 11.6
Nevada: 12.0
South Carolina: 12.1
Rhode Island: 12.4
Oregon: 12.2
Michigan: 15.2
Some unemployment numbers for the end of May for individual California cities.

Riverside: 13.0
Bakersfield: 14.0
Stockton: 15.0
Fresno: 15.4
Merced: 17.3
El Centro: 26.8

Facts from the BLS
Google reported 19% gain in profit, so when is our relief coming.
Didn’t Google just lay a bunch of people off?

When is the tech industry going to unionize, because they need to. That industry is highly exploitative.

Here’s the warning lay off list from July-December of 2009. It is a list that companies have to send to EDD so you can get your unemployment and food stamps!! The number represents the number of people being let go. The date is when it’s happening. Your boss knows when they are going to let you know, but they don’t tell you. You might take some pencils and staplers and you know how much those items cost to replace. Continue reading →

La Crisis: A list of all the companies that have laid-off this year (the last six weeks.)

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A Margaret Bourke-White Photo

A Margaret Bourke-White Photo

Here is a volunteer information list of all of the companies who are or who have given people notice that they will no longer have a job.

After the company name is the layoff date and the number of affected workers

Just so you can get a feel of how bad it is this is just for the first two months of 2009 (and February just started.) There are 19 pages of companies.

In 2006 there were only 24 pages for the entire year.
In 2008 44 pages.
At this rate we’ll have 120 pages of layoffs by the end of 2009. At about 40 companies per page the amount of job losses would be staggering.

H/T to LoveandHateLA

AUTOBYTEL IRVINE 5 1/2/09
AT&T, WORLD WIDE CUSTOMER
SERVICE
SAN RAMON 37 2/27/09
AT&T, NATIONAL CUSTOMER
SUPPORT
SAN RAMON 16 2/6/09
AT&T , ADVANCE SOLUTIONS INC MONTEREY PARK 81 3/24/09
ANESIVA, INC SOUTH SAN
FRANCISCO
62 1/9/09
AT&T COMPANY PLEASANTON 16 1/30/09
AT&T COMPANY SAN RAMON 55 1/23/09
AT&T COMPANY PLEASANTON 27 2/6/09
ADOBE SYSTEMS INCORPORATED SAN JOSE 191 2/3/09
ADOBE SYSTEMS INCORPORATED SAN FRANCISCO 75 2/3/09
ALZA CORPORATION MOUNTAIN VIEW 29 3/20/09
ADVANCED MEDICAL OPTICS MILPITAS 61 1/17/09
ACTIVISION BLIZZARD LOS ANGELES 4 1/31/09
A FIRSTGROUP AMERICA CO DBAFIRST
TRANSIT
LOS ANGELES 177 2/28/09

Continue reading →

La Crisis, For Reals

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Unemployment during Great Depression
Unemployment during Great Depression

Unemployment is at 8.3 % in California. That’s pretty insane. And that doesn’t include people who have stopped looking for work or are underemployed (working parttime for peanuts) or business owners who are going under.

Can you hear the screams.

I can.

Now the counties that are especially hurting: 24% unemployment in Imperial County. In Yuba County it is at 12% and there are lots of places already at 10% and/or creeping towards 10%.

California isn’t the only place hurting. Michigan (Detroit auto industry) 9.3% and Rhode Island is also at 9.3%. Continue reading →

Leftovers can help in an economic downturn.

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This weekend I came upon a gem of an article in the LA Times that described what steps you should take when you’re unemployed.

Jobless? Tips for Survival.

And here are a smidgen of some of the great tips:

“Leftovers are also great — I have barbecued chicken today, and tomorrow it’s in my enchiladas and then it’s in a chicken salad,” said Marguerite Womack, director of economic and workforce development for United Way of Greater Los Angeles.

I’ve seen the United Way office. It is next to the Starbucks where a policeman harassed me for looking homeless. There is a big sign by that building around 5th street in downtown and on the building it says: Don’t give the homeless money, because they’ll just ask for more…ok it doesn’t say that exactly, but pretty close.

Here’s another crumb of advice:

Jessica Hodgdon, 24, was out of work recently for six months. To save money, she moved into the East Los Angeles apartment of a friend, who waived rent in exchange for Hodgdon’s help cooking and cleaning.

Free rent please.

Free rent please.

Continue reading →