Topic: Economics
84,000 Jobs Lost in August - the Rest of the Story As bad as an 84,000 job loss is, the "numbers behind the number" are even more discouraging.by Chuck Angier
(libertarian)
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
The jobs report from the BLS released on Friday September 5th showed a loss of 84,000 "seasonally adjusted" jobs in August as compared to July. An 84,000 job loss is awful, but the rest of the story is even worse.
Below is a table showing the top six losing job categories followed by the top six winning categories (NOT seasonally adjusted). The much publicized 84,000 job loss is highlighted. Using the NOT seasonally adjusted data, it looks like we lost 87,000 jobs, but what is more significant is that we lost 153,000 private sector jobs. The only reason the 87,000 isn't worse is because the government managed to create 66,000 jobs. Government (as usual) garnered the 3 largest growth categories while health care and education (as usual) captured the next 3.
Considering that half of our health care and the lion's share of education is paid for by the government, (never mind other service jobs created by and for the government), it is fair to say that the loss of 153,000 private sector jobs is grossly understated, simply because of the huge number of "private" sector jobs created by and/or for the government.
Government continues to grow while the private sector continues to shrink. (See my July and February posts for more of the same). Oh well. I guess we can all get rich teaching each other how to take care of ourselves.
Angier is self-employed in agri-business and can be reached at chuckangier@gmail.com.
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