States Continue To Lose Jobs

This past Friday the Bureau of Labor Statistics released their report detailing the labor statistics for the month of August. The news was not good, but not really unexpected either. Even when Federal Reserve Chief Bernanke tells us that the recession is likely over, he still hedges that with job markets will continue to suffer. So no one really thought these numbers were going to be uplifting, but it still is all just theory until the actual numbers present themselves.

The August numbers have now been released, so now it is no longer a theory. The job market situation has just continued to get worse.

The New York Times had nice article detailing the statistics in the report entitled “Michigan Leads in Jobless Rates Again”. As you can tell from that title, Michigan was once again the state with the highest unemployment rate sitting at 15.2 percent. The metropolitan area of Detroit was even higher at a staggering 17.3 percent. The national unemployment rate now sits at 9.7 percent. This unemployment rate is simply not acceptable for a country such as ourselves that wants to regard itself as the top economic power in the world.

In addition to Michigan, 13 other states as well as the District of Columbia saw their unemployment rates sit at over 10 percent. Nevada and Rhode Island followed Michigan, and those states as well as California saw their unemployment rates set records for that state.

The worst part of the statistics, in my mind, was that every single state saw their unemployment rate rise when compared to a year ago. That shows just how drastic and widespread the need for improvement is. This news is very disheartening as even with the economic signs of recovery that have emerged in other sectors, jobs continue to be a major issue. That seems to be the one area that is holding our country back from at the very least feeling the effects of an improved economy.

The states where jobs seem to be the most prevalent, are the states it that generally no one wants to really live in. North Dakota, South Dakota, and Nebraska all had unemployment rates under 5 percent. This means to me that if you really really want a job, you might be best off moving to one of those states. Unfortunately, this is also a catch 22 as it requires at least some sense of stability and savings to conduct a move like that. Its hard to move where the jobs are when you can’t afford to move.

The question now becomes, what’s the solution to getting the job market headed in the right direction? If we at least knew that then maybe we could do something about it. Unfortunately, that’s not a question that has an easy answer. Any solution is just going to take time, and people don’t really tend to be patient when it comes to matters affecting their pocketbooks.

I know a lot of the old school type people have the thinking mentality of, there’s work out there for anyone that is serious about working. I even must admit that I have thought that way at certain points in my life. However, I don’t think that is really the case anymore. There’s no way that you can tell me that almost a fifth of the people in Detroit have no desire to work. That dog just doesn’t hunt. In these times there are certainly honest, hardworking people out there that simply can not find a job.

The housing market may return, and the stock market may continue to rise, but what good really is all of that when such a large segment of the population remains without a job. Its really a shame, but I think getting out of the recession is going to be something that happens a lot more quickly for the well off people than it does for the rest of our population. The recession seems to have just accentuated the class division even more, and at this pace the recovery is going to do the same thing. As they say, the rich keep getting richer and the poor they just say poor. Hopefully at some point some of the things will trickle down, but as the word trickle implies, it’s going to be a slow process.