Brochures are seen on display at a state unemployment office in Sunnyvale, Calif., July 30, 2008. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
by Mark Silva
The government's monthly jobs report is out, and guess what? It's not good.
Another 51,000 jobs were lost last month - which raises the number of jobs lost so far in 2008 to 463,000.
And the unemployment rate rose to 5.7 percent, one percentage point higher than it was a year ago, the Department of Labor reports this morning.
Manufacturing, construction, employment services, wholesale trade and the information industry are taking the hits, while employment actually is up in health care - could be a lot of whiplash cases in this economy - and in mining (oil and gas).
Both the number of unemployed (8.8 million) and the rate of unemployment (5.7 percent) rose in July. The numbers of jobless Americans have risen by 1.6 million in a year.
The picture was better for whites (unemployment at 5.1 percent) than it was for blacks (9.7 percent) and Hispanics (7.4 percent). Summer jobs are scarce too: Teenage unemployment at 20.3 percent in July.
The numbers of people working part time for economic reasons has grown by 308,000 - to 5.7 million. That has grown by 1.4 million over the past year. This includes people who say they would like to be working fulltime but their hours have been cut.
For more on the jobs picture, see the report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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Comments
D'ye kin Jonah McCain??
Economy is going to hell in a BushBasket.
So, let's run some more ads pairing Obama with Paris Hilton.
That'll change the subject for awhile.
Posted by: ornery | August 1, 2008 9:37 AM
"FOUR MORE YEARS! FOUR MORE YEARS!..."
I can't wait to hear the Republicans shout that when GW gives his fairwell speech.
Wow! McCain will have a stroke.
Posted by: Jorge from Bloomington | August 1, 2008 10:56 AM
I just recently spoke to a friend of mine who got word from a local Illinois company that had 4 positions open and interview several people......of those interviewed there were 30 Blacks. In all 30 of them, only 29 passed the drug test, and the 1 left had passed that, but then went on to fail the back ground test. If that doesn't tell people where some of the problems are with the large numbers of Blacks %-wise not getting these jobs, I don't know what else someone could do to kick you in the behind so you could get it. This is a great job, great medical, dental, and vision coverage, pension.
My point is this, numbers make for racial hate, but facts and more in depth reporting help races compete equally because it allows those feeling their race is being left out of job opportunities to realize a striking reason why.
It's pretty bad when URINE SAMPLES have become big business for people wanting to use someone elses urine to try and pass these tests. Some are actually having a medical person go in the bathrooms to watch the test takers urinate because there is so much cheeting. WAKE UP MEDIA, report it like it is!
Posted by: Shake the fence | August 1, 2008 7:44 PM
I have tried to post on this site several times and no one will let me make a very important point, why?
I just got word from a friend at a company in Illinois, who said that they had 4 openings (right now) for good paying jobs, good medical, dental, and eye coverage and more. Out of the 30 Blacks who applied 29 of them did not pass their PEE TEST, and the 30th didn't pass the back ground check that followed.
This article lists a large number of Blacks compaired to Whites, which I think incites a Bitter attitude when all they are showing are the numbers. I feel that the information I am sharing might be inciteful to those who only see a number. There is more to it than just numbers, Blacks are not being discriminated against because of their color.
I've tried several times to reword how I have given this information, thinking that The Swamp feels I've said something in a mean way so they won't post my previous letters. I am hoping that I can make my point this time.
Posted by: Shake the fence | August 2, 2008 4:10 AM
What the Media fail to show, is that historically it has been shown that a minimum wage increase has spiked the unemployment numbers. This would AGAIN be the case. This article is bias, REPORT THE TRUTH, we just had minimum wage go up!
Posted by: Shaking the fence | August 4, 2008 6:29 AM
Actually, I heard the numbers spike when ever they have an increase in the minimum wage. Isn't that a posibility here? Also, how many jobs were lost because of the FUEL costs going up so high. This is really tragic>We really need to drill !
Posted by: sth | August 5, 2008 10:54 AM