US Loses Just 345,000 Jobs in May, Raising Hopes

[tekisui]

Source: AP

WASHINGTON – Employers throttled back on layoffs in May and cut the fewest jobs in any month since the financial crisis erupted last fall — raising the brightest hope yet that an economic recovery will take hold later this year.

But with companies still reluctant to hire, the nation's jobless rate rose to a quarter-century high of 9.4 percent, and it likely will keep rising into 2010, possibly within striking distance of its post-World War II peak of 10.8 percent.

The economy shed 345,000 jobs in May, the Labor Department said Friday — half what it was losing in a month at the start of the year. But the report also underscored how hard it has been for America's 14.5 million unemployed to find new jobs.

"Less bad, yes," Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, said, summarizing the economy. "Good, no."

Companies probably won't ramp up hiring until they feel sure a recovery is here to stay. Still, considering the damage the recession has wrought — 6 million jobs lost since December 2007 — it was encouraging that employers cut far fewer jobs in May.

The 345,000 jobs lost was down sharply from 504,000 in April, and an even bigger improvement over the average of nearly 700,000 jobs lost monthly during the first quarter of this year.

"The light at the end of the tunnel just got a lot brighter," said Nigel Gault, chief U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight.

more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090605/ap_on_re_us/us_economy

[maryf]

1. I feel so much better....

:wtf: Maybe they are running out of people to lay off, JUST 345,000????

[JanMichael]

2. Beat me to it! "only" 345,000? That's a darn near recovery! NOT!

[maryf]

3. I rarely OP but think I'll have to on this...keep an eye out?nt

[XemaSab]

7. What percent of the total employment is that?

:shrug:

[tekisui]

9. It is still alot, but it could be a sign that the snowball has lost momentum.

When recessions hit, jobs get into a downward spiral, a self perpetuating acceleration. Leveling out and a reduction in new jobless claims is a good sign, even though it still carries a lot of suffering.

[LisaM]

4. One of them was in our household

My SO's company shut down. It was small, and they didn't even have enough people to qualify for COBRA (not that COBRA is affordable). To get him on my insurance is over $500 per month.

[HughMoran]

6. Cobra is affordable for the 9 month subsidy

I pay only a little bit more (5%) that when I was working. Of course after 9 months, all bets are off.

[LisaM]

8. Well he's not even eligible

But from what I hear, it costs hundreds per month anyway.

[HughMoran]

11. $760 without subsidy, $265 with it

Sorry he's not eligible - I used to think it sucked until they passed this subsidy in the stimulus bill.

[maryf]

10. and when you're income is depleted...

Prime reason for single payer healthcare,btw...

[HughMoran]

12. Well, yeah, health insurance shouldn't be linked to whether you work or not

The whole system sucks.

[HughMoran]

5. Glad the rate is starting to flatten out

...finally.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

13. Don't worry, be happy! Like the bankers we're paying.

[taught_me_patience]

14. The internals (that nobody reads) were horrible

From David Rosenberg on mish's blog:

Moreover, the internals of today’s report, in a word, were awful. Not only are businesses still cutting jobs but they are also reducing the hours that their employees are working; the private workweek hit a new record low of 33.1 hours (from 33.2 hours in April). So, total labour input was much weaker than the headline payroll suggests and this is vividly illustrated in the aggregate-hours worked index, which fell 0.7% MoM and something ‘green shoot’ advocates will not like discuss since this was actually worse than the 0.3% MoM drop in April; this takes the three-month trend to a -8.6% annual rate. Think about that for a moment because what goes into GDP is total hours worked and productivity — so the latter better continue to hang in there or else we are going to be seeing some nasty output data going forward that may well take Mr. Market by surprise. Put another way, if companies had held hours worked constant in May instead of cutting them, to achieve the total labour input they achieved last month would have required — get this — a 927,000 payroll cut. ‘Green shoot’ indeed.

http://zerohedge.blogspot.com/2009/06/payroll-data-in-perspective.html#disqus_thread

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After you get past the mainstream media, you realize that "green shoots" are really "green shits".