QuakerOats;665523 wrote:Dream on brother, dream on ........... they had to varporize 600,000 from the unemployment roles in order for the math to arrive at 9%; total manipulation of reality.

U6 unemployment of about 18% is STAGGERING, and the socialist/marxist policy agenda of the current administration (including all cabinet positions) will never help the situation. Put your head back in the sand.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

Sand? I thought it was Kool Aid?

Amazing how guys like Gibby ignore the hocus pocus to get the unemployment figure "down" to 9% as a good thing. If a Republican were in the WH, Gibby would be among the leftists calling for the President's head for 9% unemployment.

True Unemployment figures 16% .... U3 U4 U5 U6 Note to Ty: "U" does not mean Union

The Obama Administration is fudging the numbers.... and those of you who believe 9% are just gullible…….

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/True-Unemployment-Figure-etfguide-2625308293.html?x=0&.v=1

http://www.newsnet14.com/2009/02/07/unemployment-figures-just-dont-add-up/

http://portalseven.com/employment/unemployment_rate_u6.jsp


U6 Umployment Rate
2000-2011

Great graph Belly. Here is the graph for the same time frame using standard unemployment numbers (U3 maybe?). I am not so certain that it is the Obama administration that is cooking the books. I remember the days of 4 and 5% unemployment and the U6 numbers show 8% unemployment during those times. I don't remember the government during that stretch touting the low 8% unemployment rate. At first glance it looks like they have the same general shape. Both graphs show a distinct leveling of the bloodshed in the last year and the hint of a small improvement towards the end. Lets hope that it is real and continues.


http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet?data_tool=latest_numbers&series_id=LNS14000000

ccrunner609;664969 wrote:Do you realize that the million jobs that have been created in the past year, only 50,000 were private sector jobs?

Besides that number only represents the ammount of people that are still actively unemployed. The drop from 9.4 to 9.0 only represents the people that dropped off the radar.....either quit looking for a job or stopped claims for unemplyment. Those 36,000 new jobs arent even close to the 200,000 needed per month to keep up.

Whats going on in the private sector is that many companies are taking their profits that they could use for producing more overhead (filling a job) and they are invessting it. Thats why the stock market is taking off. THe economy is creeping back and the $ out there is getting dumped into investing and not job creation.

Companies got to get rich before they can hire.

do you realize Corp America is doing phenomenal right now?

derek bomar;668123 wrote:do you realize Corp America is doing phenomenal right now?

Hahahahaha!

As a former member of "Corp America," I can attest to the fact that this isn't true. Money is alright, but ROIs are still slim in a LOT of industries.

O-Trap;668147 wrote:Hahahahaha!

As a former member of "Corp America," I can attest to the fact that this isn't true. Money is alright, but ROIs are still slim in a LOT of industries.

this is from Q3 2010...

https://guidance.fidelity.com/viewpoints/2010-q3-earnings

Earnings growth by sector
Earnings grew 33% on a year-over-year basis during the quarter (versus analysts’ expectations of 28%). For the sixth straight quarter, total S&P 500 companies’ earnings growth exceeded analysts’ expectations.

Maybe I needed to clarify my statement - I was responding to his statement they need to make money before hiring. They are making money. That isn't the damn problem. The problem is that they're making this money AFTER cleaning house/trimming fat, which is just forcing everyone who still has a job to work harder to pick up the slack. If corporations can make money without having to hire, why would/should they hire? With people becoming more and more efficient with the help of technology/youth, companies can do more with less.

derek bomar;668193 wrote:this is from Q3 2010...

https://guidance.fidelity.com/viewpoints/2010-q3-earnings

Earnings growth by sector
Earnings grew 33% on a year-over-year basis during the quarter (versus analysts’ expectations of 28%). For the sixth straight quarter, total S&P 500 companies’ earnings growth exceeded analysts’ expectations.

Maybe I needed to clarify my statement - I was responding to his statement they need to make money before hiring. They are making money. That isn't the damn problem. The problem is that they're making this money AFTER cleaning house/trimming fat, which is just forcing everyone who still has a job to work harder to pick up the slack. If corporations can make money without having to hire, why would/should they hire? With people becoming more and more efficient with the help of technology/youth, companies can do more with less.

Indeed, these companies can be more efficient, but the trick to growing, then, is learning to replicate that efficiency, so that you're maintaining the ROI that has resulted from the fat trimming, but you do it on a larger scale as a whole.

At the end of the day, it's net dollars and cents that matter. Stats like ROI are great, but you can't spend ROI, which is why it is still in a company's best interest to hire when it can. If it can have 100 employees producing double the return on the cost to employ them, then a company will try to find a way to make that 101 employees producing at the same rate, and so on.

O-Trap;668217 wrote:Indeed, these companies can be more efficient, but the trick to growing, then, is learning to replicate that efficiency, so that you're maintaining the ROI that has resulted from the fat trimming, but you do it on a larger scale as a whole.

At the end of the day, it's net dollars and cents that matter. Stats like ROI are great, but you can't spend ROI, which is why it is still in a company's best interest to hire when it can. If it can have 100 employees producing double the return on the cost to employ them, then a company will try to find a way to make that 101 employees producing at the same rate, and so on.

ROI is obviously important, and yes, it makes sense to hire if that additional employee increases the company's bottom line. I guess the question is were the jobs of the terminated done away with all together because of increased efficiencies? And if that's the case, can these people develop another skill that's beneficial to a company looking to expand?

My main point is that companies right now aren't hiring due to a lack of income generation...they just don't have an incentive to hire, at least not on a large enough scale to matter.

derek bomar;668230 wrote:ROI is obviously important, and yes, it makes sense to hire if that additional employee increases the company's bottom line. I guess the question is were the jobs of the terminated done away with all together because of increased efficiencies? And if that's the case, can these people develop another skill that's beneficial to a company looking to expand?

My main point is that companies right now aren't hiring due to a lack of income generation...they just don't have an incentive to hire, at least not on a large enough scale to matter.

Agreed.

This is where the "survival of the fittest" mentality needs to kick in with people out of work. If your skill has become obsolete to the company you were with (as mine did at my last job), you've got a couple routes:

1. Find another company that requires that skill in order to be profitable
2. Learn/Teach yourself a new, profitable skill
3. Use the skills you have and the skills you can learn to make YOURSELF the money

While unemployed, I worked at all three of these. As a result, I now have a lower-paying job (the skill set is new to me, because I'm starting over), but the skills I already had were what helped me GET the job (found a way to parallel past jobs with current responsibilities), and I work for myself on the side (meaning that, all things considered, I make more overall than I made at my last job - made over $500 today already).

I spent 13 months "unemployed" (only 5 in which I collected unemployment), but I came out the other end leaner, with a wider skill set, with more income streams, and having learned to do more in less time (I spend less time on my two "jobs" than I did on my one before).

It's not easy, but it's doable.

The company I consulted for throughout much of 2010 has invested wisely in technologies and equipment that have made steelmaking so efficient they were able to reduce the number of workers needed to run an electric arc furnace operation from three to two. None of this was rocket science; it just took a sizeable capital investment to make it happen. The ROI was so good that it made perfect sense to do it. Now all of their plants (three in the U.S. and one in Canada) run this way and their production is up, so much that they are contemplating opening a facility in the South that has been mothballed for several years.

It must be understood that the market they serve is cyclical by nature, and it has always bounced back. It just took a little longer to recover from this recession than those in the past.

Obama is not cooking the books. There is a well-established method of measuring and reporting unemployment. The difference is, due to the length and depth of this recession, more people who have given up looking or no longer qualify for unemployment have accumulated.

The other thing is people have seen hours and bonuses/tips decrease, so eventhough they are still employed they are significantly worse off. When the unemployment benefit extensions start to expire Obama's number is going to look even better while the true number remains unchanged.

Corporate America is definitely doing fine right now. Which is probably why they aren't hiring. If they have been posting record quarterly profits without those extra employees what's the incentive to hire them back?

They will begin to hire them back when demand for their product exceeds what they can produce at current manning levels. They will work employees overtime, but only until it becomes more financially feasible to hire new employees.

As more of us boomers retire, the unemployment will continue to shrink. There will be a gazillion jobs available for the Xers and Yers to make their fortune with. Give a boomer a hug today for making your future so much brighter.

Well now there's the rub.

If the Boomers are ABLE to retire (portfolios are healthy, SS isn't bankrupt) then mega jobs will be opening up sooner, rather than later. If their assets aren't what they need to comfortably retire, many of those folks will be hanging onto their jobs as long as possible...delaying that effect.

Footwedge;678576 wrote:As more of us boomers retire, the unemployment will continue to shrink. There will be a gazillion jobs available for the Xers and Yers to make their fortune with. Give a boomer a hug today for making your future so much brighter.

I'm not so sure this is true. As some Boomers retire, their positions are not being filled and just being eliminated. Companies are learning to be more efficient with less.

Hmm, not so fast there Ty.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/146147/Gallup-Finds-Unemployment-Mid-February.aspx

tk421;682166 wrote:Hmm, not so fast there Ty.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/146147/Gallup-Finds-Unemployment-Mid-February.aspx

OUCH.... Ty can you change the Post title "Unemployment up 1 now"

dwccrew;678960 wrote:I'm not so sure this is true. As some Boomers retire, their positions are not being filled and just being eliminated. Companies are learning to be more efficient with less.

I think that is a part of it, but perhaps a bigger part is that businesses know that taxes will have to increase to pay for the Boomers' entitlements - not exactly a great recipe for growth.

The really sad thing is when you consider past periods where REAL unemployment was this high (70's, Great Depression and a probably one or two other times) is there are far more women in the workplace than ever before. When you consider that the number is staggering and it's amazing things aren't much worse.