Payrolls expanded by 117,000 jobs in July as unemployment fell to 9.1 percent, a bit of good news in what has been a dismal series of economic reports this summer.
US stocks had been in a tailspin leading up this morning's Labor Department report. They closed down 9 of the last 10 trading days, capped by a 500-point loss on the Dow Jones Industrial Average yesterday. The Dow has fallen 1,300 points since July 21, erasing all its gains for the year.
The report "should lessen fears that the recovery is truly faltering," Jim O'Sullivan, chief economist at MF Global, told the Associated Press.
At the 9:30 a.m. ET opening of the markets, the Dow headed straight up, surging 170 points in the first two minutes of trading. Markets in Europe, which have been rattled by rising government debt in Italy and Spain, also rose after the jobs report.
Economists were expecting 85,000 jobs to be added in July and unemployment to stay steady at 9.2 percent. In June, private employers added just 18,000 jobs.
But in July, businesses added 154,000 jobs across many industries, the Labor Department said. Governments cut 37,000 jobs last month, though 23,000 of those losses were almost entirely because of the shutdown of Minnesota's state government.
We keep hearing over and over that NO President has ever successfully run for reelection with job numbers this low, which seems to be encouraging the Republicans to do everything in their power to keep Americans out of work simply for the sake of political expediency.
If they are successful they will have demonstrated how ignorant and uninformed the America voters are, and will once again have sacrificed the good of the country in service to their corporate masters.
I think that it behooves all of us to keep presenting charts like this one...
to our friends, and families. And reminding people that THIS is the result of giving corporations indefensible tax breaks, and allowing businesses to do what they want without Government oversights in place.
Yes the job growth is slow, but under this Democratic President at least it IS growing. What do the Republicans really offer us except more of the same policies that got us into the ditch that Obama is trying to drive us out of, with virtually NO help from the other party?
There are real people suffering here, and the idea that some politicians would play fast and loose with their lives solely in the interest of gaining or retaining power, really pisses me off!
