Unemployment rate down to 9.5% but few private sector jobs created

The United States added just 83,000 private-sector jobs in June, a dishearteningly low number that could add to the growing number of economists who warn that the economic recovery is stalling.

Over all, the nation lost 125,000 jobs, , according to the monthly snapshot of the job market released by the Labor Department on Friday. Most of the lost jobs came as temporary workers hired by the federal government to help with the census exited their jobs.

The unemployment rate, based on a different survey, declined to 9.5 percent in June from the previous 9.7 percent.

Just as last month's government job report appeared deceptively robust, swollen as it was by 411,000 workers hired by the federal government to help with the census, so the June report appears deceptively anemic, as the government is shedding many of those same temporary census workers.

You can stop looking at the actual unemployment number because people drift in and out of the job market depending on how discouraged they are.

Keep you eyes on the number of private sector jobs created. We need to create about 150,000 a month just to keep pace with the number of Americans entering the job market. May's job creation was revised downward to just 33,000 while June's number was a little more than half of what it needs to be at 83,000. We are one year and 4 months into the Obama stimulus and the promised jobs just aren't showing up. They can brag all they want to about "jobs saved" but that is cold comfort if you've been out of work for a year and have little prospect of finding employment in the future.

And it's not just jobs that are pointing the way to a double dip recession:

The week or so leading up to Friday's report offered a grim rat-a-tat-tat of statistics pointing to a slowing economy. Auto sales were off more than expected, as sales plunged 30 percent in May, a far greater drop than expected. And unemployment claims rose by 13,000 to 472,000, which is far higher than usual if one is looking for signs that private payrolls are growing in a sustained fashion.

Private job growth has risen every month this year. But that growth slowed to a worrisome trickle in May, as the economy created just 33,000 jobs that month, according to revised figures released Friday. By way of comparison, the economy has lost 7.4 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007.

The number of long-term unemployed, those Americans out of work for 27 weeks or more, remained at its highest peak since the Labor Department began collecting such data shortly after the Great Depression.

If Nancy Pelosi is correct , this is actually pretty good news; more unemployment checks means more job creation...or something.

That may be the most tone deaf, idiotic, ignorant statement ever made by a national leader.