The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) just released their report…and it is not pretty. Here are some important things I pulled:
- The economy has lost over 4 million jobs in the past year.
- More than 7 million since this “recession” started.
- The “unemployment rate” is now steady at 10%.
- The real unemployment rate (the “U-6″ rate) is still over 17%.
- This measure captures people who don’t have jobs, have stopped looking for work due to discouragement, and who are underemployed (an engineer working a temporary job at McDonalds).
Sadly it’s getting increasingly clear from the data that we are not exiting a “typical recession” and that there is no real recovery to be had. These terrible numbers are just the latest sign of the massive structural problems in our economy that have brewing for more than the past two decades. It will be interesting to see how these figures get spun by politicians and the media.