Friday, September 7, 2012

Jobs Report Falls Short

We've got another good news/bad news unemployment figure out this morning: After some excitement earlier in the week, when the private ADP payroll figure suggested the economy might have created as many as 200,000 new private-sector jobs, the official number from the Bureau of Labor Statistics came in at just 96,000 new jobs. At the same time, though, the official unemployment figure dropped from 8.3 percent to 8.1 percent.

The private sector was responsible for the creation of 103,000 new jobs, with the government shedding 7,000 jobs for the month.Perhaps the most disappointing sector was factory jobs, which were down 15,000 on the month, after in increase of 23,000 jobs in July.

The unemployment rate dropped primarily due to an increase in the number of people leaving the work force. All told, 368,000 Americans stopped looking for work, for one reason or another, over the course of the month.That is not a positive sign for the economy.

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