There are some jobs that flat out aren’t coming back anytime soon–home building and mortgage processing come to mind. We’ll see what happens with these folks. I think they ought to be put to work fixing our broken infrastructure. Why is it that some say that if the government pays people to stay home and watch TV on unemployment, that’s capitalism. But if the government pays people to do work, that’s socialism?

@johnborchers
How do you know they’re American citizens falling out of the workforce? If you go to the BLS website, you’ll see that the survey does not separate workers out by immigration status. It includes everyone–legal and illegal.

Let me guess: you think we’re in recovery but with a 50-50 chance of double-dip.

Sell-off resuming?

Subir, that’s a good way to state it… just like ‘capacity utilization’ for manufacturing.

The absolute best interpretation of the European and Chinese situations is: Bad.

Is that 1-yr ago the monthly numbers were -600k, -700k, -800k. And so now they are +50k, -150k, -25k.

The trend, for the past year, is pretty firm — and its way, way better.

The question is… will that continue? Will we see solid positive #s in the +200-500k range in 6 months?

Also take a look at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm the section that reads “Revisions to Establishment Survey Data”, this is the adjustment being discussed earlier in the week (birth-death model assumptions replaced by actual counts).

“The total nonfarm employment level for March 2009 was revised down-
ward by 902,000 (930,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis), or 0.7 percent. The
previously published level for December 2009 was revised downward 1,390,000
(1,363,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis).”

also further on in the same page:

“Effective with data for January 2010, updated population estimates have been
used in the household survey. ” ……

“In accordance with usual practice, BLS will not revise the official household
survey estimates for December 2009 or earlier months. To show the impact of
the population adjustment, however, differences in selected December 2009 labor
force series based on the old and new population estimates are shown in table B.
The adjustment decreased the estimated size of the civilian noninstitutional
population in December by 258,000, the civilian labor force by 249,000, and
employment by 243,000; the new population estimates had a negligible impact
on unemployment rates and other percentage estimates. ”

All these may not be big deals, and I don’t subscribe to conspiracy theories. But all this does tell me that the 10.0 –> 9.7 move has to be taken with a grain of salt since there are a number of adjustments being made to the model this month (more than usual).

I believe the Fed was manipulating market prices upwards this year to mitigate pension underfunding and to aid 401K balances.

These forced early retirements will drain the social security fund sooner than expected.

The decline in the unemployment rate is pure statistical BS. I’m sure Kudlow and Maria will be loading their Depends describing the falling unemployment rate but by now people have figured out that CNBC buzz is a real counter indicator