Good News on the Jobs Front, Anyway

The lead article in today’s New York Times, “U.S. Posts a Gain of 216,000 Jobs, a Lift for Obama,” provides welcome good news after the crises in Japan and Libya. The increase represents the 12th consecutive month of job growth since the recovery began, totaling 1.8 million new jobs in all.

The President rightly used the statistic against Congressional Republicans who are threatening deep cuts in the budget at a time when all respectable economists say we need stimulus. The cutbacks could stifle or even reverse the recovery should they become law.

Still, even with the positive statistic, there are some reasons for continued worry. The black unemployment rate is 15.5 percent, and the Latino is 11.3 percent. These were 8.3 and 5.6 percent respectively before the financial crisis.

And at the rate we’re going, 200,000 new jobs a month, it will be 2019 before we recover to pre-financial crisis levels. We really need 300,000 per month for a vigorous comeback.

And we should also be concerned about the long-term unemployment picture, those who have been without work for 27 weeks or more remains extremely high at more than six million people. Also, it’s becoming increasingly common for job ads to say that the person must already be employed to be considered. Government lawyers are looking into the propriety of that, but a decision remains to be reached.