Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Revised Numbers Suggest Surprisingly Robust Summer Jobs Figure (CHART)
Posted by Linda H on 9:09:00 AM
Despite estimating only modest new payroll gains in September, the Department of Labor’s latest employment report was full of good news for the Obama administration and the broader economy. The unemployment rate plummeted, the household survey (which includes self-employed people) pointed to enormous gains, the workforce grew, as did the percentage of those people working or actively looking for work.
But though the report sent Obama supporters into spasms of relief and created a new breed of anti-Obama Department of Labor conspiracy theorists, it’s worth keeping in mind that the initial estimates often over or under estimate actual changes in the labor market.
That disappointing jobs report the day after the Democratic convention ended? The Bureau of Labor Statistics now thinks it undershot the true number of new payrolls by 40,000. If October’s figures are solid, and also suggest an upward revision to today’s number, we’ll have early indications of another fall-winter boomlet — days before the election.
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Fact Check: Obama and the Resurgence of American Manufacturing
Posted by Linda H on 8:00:00 AM
LOS ANGELES — President Obama is this week heralding the resurgence of American manufacturing as a leap toward an “economy built to last,” and a sign that he deserves a second term.
“For the first time since 1990, American manufacturers are creating new jobs,” Obama said at a Master Lock facility in Milwaukee on Tuesday. “That’s good for the companies, but it’s also good up and down the supply chain.”
When Obama took office in January 2009, unemployment in the manufacturing sector stood at 10.9 percent and spiked to 13 percent a year later, according to the Labor Department. But in the two years since, unemployment has fallen precipitously, now holding at 8.4 percent in January 2012.
Apple Needs to Make it in America
