wrote in message
...
On Fri, 07 Aug 2009 21:03:41 -0400, Yogi of Woodstock
wrote:

On Fri, 07 Aug 2009 19:07:29 -0400, H the K
wrote:

A net total of 247,000 jobs were lost last month, the fewest in a year
and a drastic improvement from the 443,000 that vanished in June.

The Labor Department's report Friday showed that the unemployment rate
dropped a notch to 9.4 percent in July, from 9.5 percent the previous
month. Together with slight increases in the average workweek and wages,
the new figures suggested the economy is in a transition from recession
to recovery.

You know - it's amazing how you manage to make yourself look like a
fool every single time you post these cut and pastes.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics says the civilian labor force was
154,926,000 people.

In July, 796,000 of those were taken out of their definition of the
workforce, and thus their unemployment calculations for this month,
because they have stopped looking for work. Ten percent of the June
workforce would be 15.4 million, 1 percent would be 1.5 million, and
so 796,000 is roughly one half of one percent.

In other words, BLS took .5 percent of the unemployed and took them
out of their total. And with that, unemployment went down one tenth of
one percent.

I know - I know - math is hard.

Apparently, so is economics.

There is also the problem of "underemployment". We have a lot of
former mid-level management types who are asking you if you want fries
with that and construction people who used to have more work than they
could handle, that are mowing lawns and doing odd jobs to keep food on
the table. They are "employed" but not at the level they should be.
This is actually a flaw in "unemployment" numbers that has always gone
on in these things.
I suppose the flip side of that is there are people collecting
unemployment and working somewhere under the table.
Lee County is still saying we are cruising in the mid 12% unemployed.

Seems like one can find statistics to support any conclusion. Hey, look.
The government reported that the job loss this month was .2% less than last
month. I don't know about you, but I felt better immediately.

Steve