We’ve crossed the psychological barrier and this spells bad news for Dems unless they can turn it around in the next couple months. Because this is the highest rate since 1983 and you’ll be hearing that time and time again in the next month.

Here’s more about those numbers:

Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (10.7 percent) and whites (9.5 percent) rose in October. The jobless rates for adult women (8.1 percent), teenagers (27.6 percent), blacks (15.7 percent), and Hispanics (13.1 percent) were little changed over the month. The unemployment rate for Asians was 7.5 percent, not seasonally adjusted.

The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) was little changed over the month at 5.6 million. In October, 35.6 percent of unemployed persons were jobless for 27 weeks or more.

The civilian labor force participation rate was little changed over the month at 65.1 percent. The employment-population ratio continued to decline in October, falling to 58.5 percent.

Thankfully, only 190,000 non-farm jobs were lost last month. That’s lower than September’s 216,000 so the trend is in the right direction.

Also, some good news for those without work…jobless benefits are being extended:

After weeks of partisan debate, the Senate voted on Wednesday to lengthen unemployment benefits by up to 20 weeks and to extend the $8,000 homebuyer tax credit.

The closely watched legislation would extend jobless benefits in all states by 14 weeks. Those that live in states with unemployment greater than 8.5% would receive an additional six weeks. The proposal would be funded by extending a longstanding federal unemployment tax on employers through June 30, 2011.

The measure would apply to those whose benefits will run out by Dec. 31, which is nearly two million people, according to Senate estimates. Those whose checks have already stopped would be able to reapply for another round.

The vote was 98 to 0.

How’s that for bipartisan?

More as it develops…

You’ve probably noticed that I haven’t been posting a lot in the past couple weeks and that’s because the day job has been VERY consuming…but in a good way.

Basically, over the past year I’ve been working on developing a new website for AMC Theatres and it just launched Monday. On it you can find movie trailers, show times, movie news, a community based around our collective love for movies and much, much, much, much, much more.

So drop by AMCEntertainment.com, sign up and tell me what you think at our Get Satisfaction feedback site.

And MANY thanks to my fellow Donklephant contributors for helping fill in the gaps. It is very appreciated.

More from Reuters:

Analysts polled by Reuters had expected non-farm payrolls to drop 180,000 in September and the unemployment rate to rise to 9.8 percent from 9.7 percent the prior month. The poll was conducted before reports, including regional manufacturing surveys, showed some deterioration in employment measures.

The government revised job losses for July and August to show 13,000 more jobs lost than previously reported. Preliminary annual benchmark revisions, released together with September’s employment report showed that total non-farm payroll employment for March would have to be revised down about 824,000. [...]

Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed people has risen by 7.6 million to 15.1 million, the department said. While the decline in payrolls has moderated from early this year, companies are still not hiring on a wide scale, likely waiting for a signal that the economic recovery is sustainable.

This can kind of be a chicken and an egg problem. Companies won’t start hiring until they see signs of recovery, but recovery won’t happen until companies start hiring. Yikes!

That’s where the solvency of the banking industry comes into play, and while we have seen some of the TARP money paid back, money is still hard to come by. My continued belief is employment is always a lagging indicator of economic recovery and that we’ll start to see job growth by Q1 2010.

Tick tock…

This is pretty significant for a few reasons.

First, there’s just the psychological effect of 10% unemployment. The media had been positioning that as the dreaded magic number and now it appears that we’ll never reach it.

Second, economists projected 325,000 job losses for July, so coming in 80,000 below is incredibly encouraging.

Third, we lost 545,000 jobs in April, 532,000 in May, 443,000 in June, and now 247,000 in July. Obviously we’re headed in the right direction.

Still, as the NY Times points out, people are hurting…

Karen Triplett, 61, of Atlanta, lost her job in advertising sales in February and said she has been hitting wall after wall as she looks for work. The only job offer she received, she said, turned out to be a scam.

“It’s dismal to say the least,” she said. “I went from making $60,000 a year to $1,100 a month unemployment. I’ve got two friends who have already lost their houses. I’m struggling just to make sure my house note is met.”

Ms. Triplett said she worked nearly full-time since she was a teenager — as a secretary at a bank, a tobacco company and a television station, as a flight attendant, and selling advertising. She raised two children, bought a house, paid her bills on time and had a credit score of 878. Now, she is trying to stretch her unemployment checks far enough to cover her costs and struggling to pay her credit-card bills.

“I’m beyond down to basics,” Ms. Triplett said. “My daughter’s tried to help me. My son has given me money. But what I can’t do, I can’t do.”

So while we’re not adding jobs yet, I can’t help but think we’re only a few months away from that.

Fingers crossed.

With unemployment now at 9.5%, a 26 year high, most economists foresee double-digit unemployment before the end of the year with numbers continuing to rise into 2010 before beginning to creep back down. Of course, when you figure in all those who’ve given up looking for a job and those who’ve had to settle for low-paying part-time jobs, the real unemployment rate is closer to 16.5%.

That’s a lot of unemployment for the economy to absorb. Given that some jobs aren’t coming back (automotive for instance) and others will have to come back from new sources (Linens n’ Things, Circuit City, etc.), there is no reason to think any recovery will be quick or easy. I suspect economists will be regularly confounded and estimates will be regularly wrong.

The hope is that, all-and-all, the economy trends upwards. We can handle a few bumps, I’m not sure we’d fare well under a long depression.

This Tuesday, Joe Biden will be traveling to a solar panel manufacturer near Toledo, Ohio to put his money where his mouth is. Willard & Kelsey Solar Group just received $10 Million from the Economic Stimulus Plan to create up to 3,500 new jobs making thin photo-voltaic cells for residential and commercial use.  VP Biden will tour the facility at 10 AM and hold a middle class task force meeting titled “Promoting American Manufacturing in the 21st Century” afterwards. He’ll discuss the state of the manufacturing industry, how the administration is supporting manufacturing communities presently and what they have planned for the future.

Read more Quotes about Father’s Day and Plans for Michigan here!

It examines one of the central tensions in the public takeover of the company: Should federal dollars be spent building a lean, mean business model that will please Wall Street and increase value for shareholders (i.e. American taxpayers)? Or, should there be some built-in conditions designed to set aside as many manufacturing jobs as possible for certain people (i.e. American taxpayers)?

Now that we all own 60% of the company, it may be a story you find worth the watch:

Yet the question remains: What has Joe Biden done for the Middle Class?

Several months ago, I checked the Middle Class Task Force site only to find a discussion of ways to help people send their kids to college… and I thought, “So what?” What is the purpose of going to college if there are no jobs waiting at the other end of the tunnel? Moreover, a 20/20 special posited that Bachelor’s Degrees are “America’s biggest over-rated product.” Upping college enrollment seems to be the wrong approach. After all, 1 in 5 people who are unemployed hold at least a college degree, according to NPR.   

This month, everyone’s clamoring, “Where are the jobs, Joe?” We’re told there’s good news from the White House – that 150,000 jobs have been either saved or created in the first 100 days.

Yet, when questioned how they arrived at that figure, Joe just sheepishly replied, “I’m a little above my pay grade here as I try to explain in more detail how they count spinoff effects of actual jobs created, I’m sorry. I’m not an Economist. My background is in foreign policy and the constitution.”

He told us to be patient, that the $500 million training program was on its way. The latest unemployment figures indicate 345,000 jobs were cut in May, bringing the national unemployment rate to 9.4%. Back in January, we were promised the unemployment rate wouldn’t exceed 8% if the stimulus was passed. (To be safe, Obama changed his figures to a projected 10% unemployment rate before the end of the year.)

Continue reading…

$87 billion of the $787 billion has already been spent in the past 3.5 months, and the monthly unemployment claims were cut in half last month (when compared to the previous 6 months) and the stimulus isn’t working?

This is in response to Republican lawmakers, specifically Sarah Palin, continuing to push the memes that the stimulus isn’t working and we’re headed towards socialism…the latter of which was “graphically” embarrassed recently.

Listen, I know that this is all positioning for 2010, but do they really think it’s wise to place their bets on this horse? I get that the Obama administration opened themselves up for criticism recently because they estimated that unemployment would top off at 8%, but signs are pointing to a recovery within the year. Because imagine if the monthly unemployment numbers come in at 250,000 next month. And then 150,000 after that. And then 100,000.

What if by the end of the year we’re seeing job growth? What then?

Would they consider the stimulus a failure?

Regardless of economic philosophy, I just think they’re betting it all on red and that could easily turn up a losing hand if they’re not careful.

Many economists believe the jobless rate will hit 10 percent by the end of this year. Some think it could rise as high as 10.7 percent by the second quarter of next year before it starts to make a slow descent. The post-World War II high was 10.8 percent at the end of 1982.

The Fed says unemployment will remain elevated into 2011 given the expectation of tepid recovery. Economists say the job market may not get back to normal — meaning a 5 percent unemployment rate — until 2013. Economic recoveries after financial crises tend to be slower, economists say.

But many economists also think we could start seeing growth again by as soon as the third quarter of this year. The question is, given the turmoil in the auto industry and continued ups-and-downs on Wall Street, will the economy grow quickly or will it be a creeping sort of growth, fueled more by the fact that we’ve hit rock bottom than by any returning strength?

We’ll have to wait and see. And hope for the best.

In a bid to survive bankruptcy, Chrsyler is closing nearly 800 dealerships, a full quarter of the company’s dealers. The dealers themselves had no say.

While bankruptcy may be a better long-term solution for Chrysler than continued government bailouts, the short-term will not be pretty. Car dealerships provide a lot of jobs and a lot of tax revenue for communities. They also tend to sponsor charity events and spend a lot on advertising, particularly in local newspapers which, as we all know, aren’t doing so well these days.

The National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) has already launched a campaign calling on President Obama to act now to stop the Chrysler closings and the ones expected to affect over 1,000 GM dealers in the next few weeks and months. One of NADA’s talking points is that dealers, on average, pump $16.5 million per year into their communities. The lost revenue will be felt deeply in a lot of places.

But just because something is painful doesn’t mean it’s unnecessary. No one wants to see this kind of turmoil in what was once one of America’s proudest companies, but Chrysler simply can’t hope to continue without making cuts. Better to remove a quarter of their dealers now than to have to shutter them all in a year or two. That’s the raw and unfortunate calculus. But I’m sure that’s cold comfort to those who will lose their jobs.

While attending the Offshore Technology Conference earlier this week (on sponsorship by the American Petroleum Institute), one truth became very apparent: opening up the outer continental shelf to oil and gas exploration would create a lot of jobs.

Right now, our government is spending hundreds of billions in an effort to revitalize the economy, but President Obama has extended the “public comment period” on OCS exploration/drilling until later this year, preventing any movement forward in that sector. The message is pretty clear: all jobs are not equal. Ideologically, this might make sense, but from a practical standpoint – with our need for jobs and for future energy sources – shouldn’t we proceed with exploration sooner rather than later?

According to the API, the industry employs 1.8 million Americans directly and supports another 4 million jobs in ancillary industries. Furthermore, wages for exploration and production jobs are double the national average. Better yet, creating more of these jobs would cost the nation nothing – in fact,ICF International estimated for the API that currently untapped offshore oil and gas resources could generate $1.3 trillion in government revenue over the life of those resources.

Even if the numbers above are overstated, it’s surprising how little attention offshore exploration and drilling has received during discussions on how to improve the economy. For various reasons, some of our leaders have a reflexive dislike of the oil and gas industry. But there is no reason why we can’t pump money and efforts into renewable energy and “green” jobs even while we create jobs in oil and gas (and help generate a bit more energy security in the process).

In my mind, offshore exploration and drilling should be one prong in our multi-pronged approach to both job creation and energy policy.

This is actually good news since folks were expecting 620,000 jobs lost. Still, even if this begins to slow down even more, we’re likely to see double digit unemployment before this is all over. Because the unemployment rate is at 8.9% right now.

Also, let’s not forget the the underemployment numbers…

If laid-off workers who have given up looking for new jobs or have settled for part-time work are included, the unemployment rate would have been 15.8 percent in April, the highest on records dating back to 1994. The total number of unemployed now stands at 13.7 million, up from 13.2 million in March.

Traditionally, underemployment is a better gauge of where the economy is at, so until that starts dropping significantly, it’s unlikely we’re really out of a recession.

Some more numbers…

Companies also kept a tight rein on workers hours. The average work week in April stayed at 33.2 hours, matching the record low set in March.

Since the recession began in December 2007, the economy has lost a net total of 5.7 million jobs.

More next month…

They were polled and that’s their number. Personally, I think 9.8% is a rosy prediction. More on that later.

From USA Today:

The unemployment rate will peak at 9.8%, according to their median forecast, up a full percentage point from the prior survey in January. Twenty-one economists predict the unemployment rate will top out at 10% or higher, according to the survey of 51 economists by USA TODAY April 16-22.

Economists also predict the jobless rate will rise for a longer time. Two-thirds say it won’t stop rising until 2010 or later, vs. 51% in January.

The unemployment rate in March was 8.5%, the highest in a quarter-century. The rate of underemployment — adding in part-timers who wanted full-time work or those who had stopped looking for a job — hit a record 15.6%.

So yes, I don’t think we’ve hit bottom yet. Why? Well, I’ve pointed out a few times now that the sub prime mess was only the beginning and a lot of other loans are just start to default. So the pain is far from over and that could have a similar cascading effect through the economy it did last fall. Not nearly as bad, but similar.

Also, we can’t ignore that underemployment number of 15.6% because that’s the true gauge of our collective financial health. If that many people want full time jobs, but can’t get them, we’re looking at a serious reset of the economy. Because that number isn’t likely to change to terribly much. In fact, I bet it’ll get more stable, even if the unemployment number goes down. Why? Because businesses will only be offering part time work because that’s all they can afford. So perhaps the 8.5% will peak and then start to go down, but we have to keep our eye on that underemployment number.

Your thoughts?

And Pontiac will vanish.

The carnage continues…

DETROIT – General Motors Corp. could be majority owned by the federal government under a massive restructuring plan laid out Monday that will cut 21,000 U.S. factory jobs by next year and phase out the storied Pontiac brand.

The plan, which includes an offer to swap roughly $27 billion in bond debt for GM stock, would leave current shareholders holding just 1 percent of the century-old company, which is fighting for its life in the worst auto sales climate in 27 years.

GM is living on $15.4 billion in government loans and said Monday in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it envisions receiving an additional $11.6 billion. But if GM’s restructuring plan can’t satisfy the government by June 1, the struggling company could go into bankruptcy protection.

So how do they plan to restructure?

Pretty simple…the government will now own GM:

GM said that it will ask the government to take more than 50 percent of its common stock in exchange for canceling half the government loans to the company as of June 1. The swap would cancel about $10 billion in government debt.

In addition, GM is offering stock to the United Auto Workers for at least 50 percent of the $20 billion the company must pay into a union run trust that will take over retiree health care expenses starting next year.

If both are successful, the government and UAW health care trust would own 89 percent of GM stock, with the government holding more than a 50 percent stake, CEO Fritz Henderson said in a news conference at GM’s Detroit headquarters.

I guess the name GM is still appropriate since it’ll essentially be short for Government Motors after this deal.

Have at it…

Whenever I see a graph like that it makes me cringe, but what goes up must come down eventually.

Now, the details…

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending April 4 was 6,022,000, an increase of 172,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 5,850,000. The 4-week moving average was 5,796,000, an increase of 146,000 from the preceding week’s revised average of 5,650,000.

Which states are getting hit hardest?

The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending March 28 were in Michigan (8.0 percent), Oregon (7.9), Rhode Island (7.1), Idaho (7.0), Wisconsin (7.0), Pennsylvania (6.7), Nevada (6.2), Alaska (6.0), Montana (6.0), and Vermont (5.9).

The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending April 4 were in Michigan (+5,408), Missouri (+4,986), Texas (+3,734), New Jersey (+2,368), and Pennsylvania (+2,194) [...]

No doubt that list keeps going and going…

Still, some states are seeing relief…

[...] the largest decreases were in California (-4,708), Ohio (-2,716), Alabama (-2,421), Florida (-1,539), and Wisconsin (-1,078).

More as it develops…

From The Department of Labor…

The advance number for seasonally adjusted insured unemployment during the week ending March 28 was 5,840,000, an increase of 95,000 from the preceding week’s revised level of 5,745,000.

The 4-week moving average was 5,647,500, an increase of 146,750 from the preceding week’s revised average of 5,500,750.

So yes, 5.84 million is an all time record. And since we’re extending unemployment benefits, a lot more of that pain is being absorbed exclusively by our federal government since states are running such big deficits right now.

But what else can we do? Not have a safety net like unemployment when the free market doesn’t provide?

In any event, this is yet another indicator that things aren’t getting better any time soon and I have serious doubts that we’ll be pulling out of this slump in the last quarter of this year as many economists predict. It’ll take a lot longer to get folks working again. So I’m talking about the 3 quarter of 2010, which is basically when more than 50% of American people think Obama fully owns the economy. At that point, the blame will be placed squarely on his shoulders.

Following up on my previous post about those awful underemployment numbers, Naked Capitalism agrees that the 15.6% number is definitely a depression type stat.

However, Robert Reich says we’re now in a depression and we’ll need more stimulus…

Capital markets may or may not unfreeze under the combined heat of the Treasury and the Fed, but what happens to Wall Street is becoming less and less relevant to Main Street. Anxious Americans will not borrow even if credit is available to them. And ever fewer Americans are good credit risks anyway.

All this means that the real economy will need a larger stimulus than the $787 billion already enacted. To be sure, only a small fraction of the $787 billion has been turned into new jobs so far. The money is still moving out the door. But today’s bleak jobs report shows that the economy is so far below its productive capacity that much more money will be needed.

This is still not the Great Depression of the 1930s, but it is a Depression. And the only way out is government spending on a very large scale. We should stop worrying about Wall Street. Worry about American workers. Use money to build up Main Street, and the future capacities of our workforce.

Will there be enough political will for more stimulus bills? In my mind, it doesn’t make any sense that we’d keep pouring billions upon billions into Iraq, but not invest in our own infrastructure.

Still, I’ll bet the Blue Dogs will NOT support more money after passing this massive budget. So folks like Reich better start think about other ways to fix this than selling debt or printing money.

One thing to take into consideration is that this graph does go back to 1995 so the fact that it’s going straight up like isn’t as scary as you’d think.

Still, it ain’t good.

This is due to many factors, but check out how Temporary Help Services employment has dropped by 27% in the past year…

By the way, according to those stats I pointed to in the very first link, unemployment is at 9.8% when seasonally adjusted and 10.3% when not seasonally adjusted. Also, the 15.6% underemployment number is seasonally adjusted, but it’s at 16.2% when not. I use the lower number because that’s what I see others using.

(h/t: The Big Picture, Econompic, Bruce Steinberg)

Right now it’s the biggest one month drop in American history, and it’s up by about 50,000 over February’s record numbers.

From Reuters:

Private employers cut jobs by a record 742,000 in March versus a 706,000 revised cut in February that was originally reported at 697,000 jobs, said ADP, which has been carrying out the survey since 2001.

The big drop foreshadows a huge decline in the non-farm payroll reading in the government’s employment report that will be released on Friday, some analysts said.

“It’s a terrible number. It is almost a loss of three quarters of a million jobs which is possibly the highest we have seen so far over the length of this crisis,” said Matt Esteve, foreign exchange trader with Tempus Consulting in Washington.

But let’s remember…employment numbers are a trailing indicator. So with the stock market going back up and a few economic indicators getting better, this could represent a bottom.

Still, I wouldn’t hold my breath when you have such a steep drop from one month to the next. Because usually what you’d see is a couple months where the numbers remained steady. We thought we saw that back in January, but that was due to the holiday season spending. After that time, people stopped spending and if they stop spending then companies are forced to cut staff. No real way around that.

More as it develops…