The good news from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is that the unemployment situation hasn’t gotten much worse over the past three months. As corporations slowdown their fulltime hiring, I predict that Temporary and 1099 Contract workers will be used more and more to help cover the limited GDP growth that does take place.

The bad news is that the employment situation over the past three months has been pretty bad, and the latest numbers aren’t encouraging.

Here are the details and my thoughts:

• The unemployment rate for June was 9.2 percent. This is up from 9.1 percent in May and 9.0 percent in April. The uptick is statistically negligible – in other words, it’s safe to say, as the BLS does, that the number hasn’t really changed. But a few more months of statistically negligible upticks will equal a statistically significant uptick over a six month period. If we don’t see improvement soon, it will be hard not to conclude that the country is gradually headed in the wrong direction.
• Approximately 18,000 jobs were added in June. Again, this is statistically insignificant. Given that 215,000 per month were added in February, March, and April, it’s also worrisome.
• The number of “discouraged workers” is down since June 2010. A “discouraged worker” is someone who has basically given up looking for a job. In June 2010, the number was 1.2 million. This past month, it was 982,000. On the other hand, the June number is 160,000 higher than the May number.
• April and May job gains were revised downward by 44,000. More bad news – as statistics come in, the employment situation is slightly worse than previously thought.
• Long-term unemployment was unchanged, but short-term unemployment was up. That’s never a good sign.

With a sigh, I predict the usual political gamesmanship as these numbers get thrown about. I don’t expect the federal government to do anything in the next few months that will contribute to significant job growth. Then again, maybe doing nothing might be good – the American business community has shown time and time again that it can do just fine when the government is in gridlock mode (example = Minnesota).  It is important to remember that companies only hire workers when they have the Revenues to back up that hiring.  Government job incentives don’t help much if your customers are not buying your products or services.  I have always thought it funny that the political parties blame each other for unemployment, when neither party can really control the creation of Revenues or Jobs.

My guess is that some larger social and labor trends are significant factors in the current employment sluggishness. It’s not just “a bad economy,” in other words. What are these factors? That’s a subject for another post.

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