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I don't have much to add about today's awful jobs report. Let me say a few minor things. The official rate was reported as 8.5%. Technically, it was 8.543% which was only about 10,000 jobs away from 8.6%. At the present rate, that's less than half-a-day's job cuts. Over the last six months, the unemployment rate has ticked up 0.1% about every week.

Over the last nine years, the unadjusted adult population has grown by 23.3 million. The civilian labor force has grown by just 11.6 million which means that less than half of the increase in population is participating in the jobs market. The number of employed has grown by just 4.2 million. So even the increase that is participating in the job market, only 36% have jobs (bear in mind, I'm talking about the net increase).

Posted by edelfenbein at April 3, 2009 10:53 AM