Unemployed data, Facts, May 8, 2010, Unemployment rate rises to 9.9 %

Three things happened last week that caused me to ponder what is going on with our economy.

The stock market plunged.

Confusing numbers from the government about employment and unemployment were released.

Many colleges were winding down their academic year. With this comes millions of young adults entering the work force part time or full time. What kind of job market will they encounter?

Consider these numbers and data released last week by the Federal Government.

• Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 290,000 in April.
• The unemployment rate edged up to 9.9 percent.
• In April, the number of unemployed persons was 15.3 million.
• The rate had been 9.7 percent for the first 3 months of this year.
• The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) con-tinued to trend up over the month, reaching 6.7 million.
• In April, 45.9 percent of unemployed persons had been jobless for 27 weeks or more.
• Among the unemployed, the number of reentrants to the labor force rose by 195,000 over the month.
• About 2.4 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force in April, compared with 2.1 million a year earlier.
• They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.
• Among the marginally attached, there were 1.2 million discouraged workers in April, up by 457,000 from a year earlier.
• Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them.
• Federal government employment was up in April, reflecting the hiring of 66,000 temporary workers for the decennial census.
• UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE WEEKLY CLAIMS REPORT: In the week ending May 1, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 444,000, a decrease of 7,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 451,000.
• States reported 5,354,259 persons claiming EUC (Emergency Unemployment Compensation) benefits for the week ending April 17, an increase of 153,786 from the prior week.

Sources:

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/eta/ui/current.htm

No wonder the stock market has the jitters.