Earlier today, the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its May 2012 unemployment report (AKA its “Employment Situation Summary”, available at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm). The news (net job creation of only 69,000 jobs) was very disappointing and came in far below economists’ expectations. According to the BLS, the January-April monthly average rate of net job creation was 188,500 jobs per month, so the May report represents a more than 60 percent drop in the rate of job creation. Putting this into a broader perspective, it takes 130,000 new jobs per month just to keep the unemployment rate at its current (historically high) 8.2% rate, assuming that the labor force participation rate remains constant and that the US population prospectively continues to grow 1% per year (see http://bit.ly/LPEVOM).
Earlier today, the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its May 2012 unemployment report (AKA its “Employment Situation Summary”, available at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm). The news (net job creation of only 69,000 jobs) was very disappointing and came in far below economists’ expectations. According to the BLS, the January-April monthly average rate of net job creation was 188,500 jobs per month, so the May report represents a more than 60 percent drop in the rate of job creation. Putting this into a broader perspective, it takes 130,000 new jobs per month just to keep the unemployment rate at its current (historically high) 8.2% rate, assuming that the labor force participation rate remains constant and that the US population prospectively continues to grow 1% per year (see http://bit.ly/LPEVOM).