The unemployment news this morning was expected to report continuing solid growth of 200,000 jobs for September along with upward revisions to previous monthly reports.
That didn't happen. In fact, the news was surprisingly weak on the employment front for September and adjusted downward for previous monthly reports. There's no good news in the numbers.
U.S. gains 142,000 jobs in September has the breaking bad news:
" The U.S. economy created just 142,000 new jobs in September and the number of new hires in August and July was also revised lower, suggesting the labor market cooled off toward the end of summer. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 5.1%, though more people dropped out of the labor force. Economists . . . had expected a gain of 200,000 nonfarm jobs, so the results are sure to disappoint Wall Street and raise questions about whether the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates at all in 2015. Employment gains for August and july were revised down by a combined 59,000, the Labor Department said Friday. The government said 136,000 new jobs were created in August instead of 173,000. July's gain was cut to 223,000 from 245,000."
Summing Up
That's bad news, but it's really not very surprising.
Jobs aren't plentiful, people aren't getting big raises and companies continue to struggle with a lousy worldwide economy.
And our government gurus talk about everything other than doing everything necessary to get the economy growing again through encouraging private sector growth initiatives.
Though hardly good news when viewed in perspective, interest rates, energy costs and prices paid for imported products will remain low for a long time to come.
I guess slow growth and bad government policy are worth something to at least some of We the People.
Thanks. Bob.
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