http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Flat-jobs-data-signal-weakest-apf-2182606890.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=7&asset=&ccode=Flat jobs data signal weakest recovery in decadesWhat recovery? Unemployment remains high and jobs scarce 2 years after Great Recession endedPaul Wiseman, AP Economics Writer, On Friday July 8, 2011, 5:24 pm EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) --
The job market is defying history.A dismal June employment report shows that employers are adding nowhere near as many jobs as they normally do this long after a recession has ended.
Unemployment has climbed for three straight months and is now at 9.2 percent. There's no precedent, in data going back to 1948, for such a high rate two years into what economists say is a recovery.
The economy added just 18,000 jobs in June. That's a fraction of the 90,000 jobs economists had expected and a sliver of the 300,000 jobs needed each month to shrink unemployment significantly.
...
But the June numbers were even worse than May's, even though gasoline prices are falling and factories revving up again.
"This is a remarkable, across-the-board backslide," says economist Heidi Shierholz of the Economic Policy Institute.
Sometimes disappointing economic reports look better on closer inspection. This one gets uglier...(more at link)