A Jekyll-and-Hyde Jobs Report

© Bryan Smith

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


The Labor Department’s numbers for August are out, and here are the highlights: The unemployment rate nudged up last month, to 9.6 percent. The private sector added 67,000 jobs, but the government lost 121,000—114,000 of which were Census jobs—giving us a net jobs loss of 54,000.

There are some brighter spots: The Bureau of Labor Statistics revised its job-loss figures for July, saying 54,000 were lost instead of 131,000 and changed its June estimate from 221,000 to 175,000. The number of long-term unemployed edged downward as well, from 6.6 million to 6.2 million, or 42 percent of all unemployed Americans. In the last year, the economy has added 229,000 jobs; since the recession started in December 2007, we’ve lost 7.6 million jobs.

Prior to Friday’s numbers, economists feared larger job losses and a bleaker outlook. Goldman Sachs’ number crunchers predicted a net loss of 125,000 jobs. The White House, for one, is touting today’s numbers, noting that it’s the eighth-straight month of private sector jobs gains. However, the real unemployment rate—including the underemployed and those “discouraged” workers who’ve stopped looking for work and left the labor force—rose again in August, to 16.7 percent from 16.5 percent.

In all, today’s is a very mixed, mostly weak report. There was a slight increase in the percentage of working-age people participating in the labor force, up to 64.7 percent from 64.6. That’s good and bad: It means a few more people are sending off resumes and looking for work, but it will also likely increase the headline unemployment rate because the number of jobless Americans is growing. That means if and when the economic recovery starts to accelerate, the jobless rate will increase before it starts to go down, a politically toxic situation for both parties—and that could begin right around election time.

Some groups are holding up today’s numbers as evidence of the need for more jobless assistance. Here’s the National Employment Law Project’s Christine Owens:

“Today’s employment report closes a summer of uncertainty that has demonstrated how far away we are from an economic recovery that creates jobs and brings unemployment down. With extraordinarily high long-term unemployment continuing—affecting over 6.2 million people—today’s jobless workers cannot wait any longer for work and income support. We need stronger policies that will help put workers back on payrolls, stimulate the economy with consumer spending and help us move out of this lethargic period of stagnant growth,” said Christine Owens, Executive Director of the National Employment Law Project.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate