New Jobs Growth in December. Highest one-month increase in a decade:

There were reportedly 297,000 jobs created in December, according to the ADP National Employment Report. Raising news hopes and aspirations for the U.S. economy. "Great News" I thought, Kudos to the White House, who had been saying all along that it will take some time, but we should begin to see the fruits of their stimulus programs soon. Soon was longer than we were willing to wait, as the midterm elections spoke volumes about the voters’frustration, and the President's popularity declined. As the employment data came trickling in from Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) the "jobs created" number for December was much less impressive. In fact, it was below expectations.

I read several articles and reports and found many different approaches to how these figures were stated. It is easy to see how this could be confusing to the average citizen. Perhaps the discrepancy was in the "gross" jobs created versus "net" jobs created. I read a few reports from the BLS's Unemployment Statistics for December (which was like deciphering the DeVinci Code) and verified that the drastic drop in jobs growth was due to the nearly 200,000 jobs that were lost last month - bringing the net increase to 103,000. Meanwhile, the relatively big drop in the unemployment rate was due to those who are no longer receiving unemployment benefits, thus no longer included in the unemployment "count". This is unfortunately a warped way of accounting for the unemployed. For a while there was a movement to establish a better accounting system for deriving more realistic figures, but that seems to have fizzled.

We have seen the Retail market rebound, the Stock Market flourish, Tourism explode and record Corporate Revenues, but the Unemployment Rate remains a sore spot, and the source of much criticism of the Obama Administration.

Say what they want, there were actually 297,000 new jobs created in December and that illustrates that businesses are feeling better about the future stability of this country. With 12 straight months of job growth, and 1.3 million new jobs created in 2010, we can safely say that Corporations are no longer sitting on cash, reluctant to expand their workforce. The economy is gaining traction, and the Republicans will not be able to take credit for this one. Let's Hope that this is finally a true sign of better days ahead.

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K. Reilly
Cohn-Reilly Report