The Bureau of Labor Statistics recently announced that wage and salary payrolls added 200,000 workers in December. This means that about 133,000 net jobs were added on a monthly basis in 2011. There was marked improvement as the year progressed, as about 143,000 jobs were added a month for the last 6 months of the year. Sectors adding jobs were transportation and warehousing, retail trade, manufacturing, health care, and the extractive industries.
This rate of growth has been sufficient to gradually reduce the unemployment rate, which reached 8.5% in December. It is necessary to add about 225,000 jobs a month on a sustained basis to lower unemployment significantly.
There are about 13.1 million unemployed workers. Most likely that number understates the severity of the situation as it does not include discouraged workers or those who did not want to deal with the hassles of seeking unemployment.
It is important to note that 5.6 million have been without work for 27 months. (Keep in mind the total number of unemployed people in January of 2001 was 6.0 million people).
The jobless rates for men (8.0%) and women (7.9%) are similar, while teenagers come in at 23.1%. The Asian population has the lowest unemployment rate at 6.8%, followed closely by whites at 7.5%. Hispanics have a jobless rate of 11.0% and blacks register 15.8%.
The Q4 preliminary Real GDP report is scheduled to be released in the latter part of January and is expected to be in the 2.5% to 3.0% range, a marked increase from the first part of the year. The combination of improved output and the increase in the number of jobs added bodes well (but not great) for 2012.
©Copyright 2011 by CBER.