Main Street

Jobs Added, But Not Many; Long-Term Unemployment Rises

The March employment summary showed a net jobs increase of 162,000 for the month, the best result reported by employers since October 2007, raising hopes that the deepest jobs recession since the Great Depression is at least stabilizing.

Source: Calculated Risk

But there was little change in overall unemployment, still stuck at 9.7 percent. The number of people officially unemployed increased by 134,000 to more than 15 million. Another 2.3 million wanted work but were not counted in the labor force. And the number of people working only part-time, but wanting full-time work, increased by a seasonally adjusted 263,000 to more than 9 million.

The biggest story hidden in the latest jobs report, though, is the continuing massive increase in long-term unemployment, with the number of those jobless for 6 months or longer increasing by more than 400,000 in March to more than 6.5 million.

A small increase was reported in construction jobs, after nearly three years of continuous declines. But how much of that was due to a bounce after February’s snowstorms is difficult to gauge. Modest job gains were also reported for durable goods manufacturing, retail, education and health care.

But more than half of the total jobs increase was in temporary hiring, with private employers adding 40,000 temporary jobs and the federal government adding 48,000 temporary census workers. Fully one-third of private employer jobs added in March were temporary jobs.

“It’s not a great picture, but at least things are not getting worse,” economist Dean Baker told me in an email. Baker’s Jobs Byte from the Center for Economic and Policy Research noted that nominal wages fell in March for just the sixth time since 1964, something that is “not a good sign for future income growth.”

Persistent high jobless rates not only continued but increased slightly again for African-Americans, Hispanics and teenagers. Unemployment for all teens increased 1.1 percent to 26.1 percent. The jobless rate for blacks increased 0.7 percent to 16.5 percent. Hispanic unemployment was up 0.2 percent to 12.6 percent in March.

But the worst and most troubling news by far was in the data for the longer-term unemployed.

While the number of people unemployed for less than 15 weeks and less than 5 weeks both declined, those unemployed for more than 26 weeks increased dramatically.

Seasonally adjusted, those unemployed for 27 weeks or more increased by 414,000 to more than 6.5 million.

The not seasonally adjusted numbers are even worse: those unemployed for 27 weeks or more increased 425,000 to more than 6.7 million.

The percent of the unemployed who have been jobless for 6 months or more continued to increase, to a seasonally adjusted record of 44.1 percent and to 42.8 percent not seasonally adjusted.

The average duration of unemployment hit another record at 32.1 weeks.

Source: Paper Economy
A set of interactive historical charts is available by clicking on the graphs here from Paper Economy.

Long-term unemployment has reached catastrophic proportions. The number of net jobs being created is nowhere near the 400,000 per month baseline that is needed to begin to bring employment levels back to even pre-recession levels in the next few years. When we need millions of new full-time jobs, most of the small number of jobs being created are either temporary or part-time. And even those are not being filled by the long-term unemployed.

Meanwhile, with Congress having failed to overcome the Republican obstruction of extended unemployment insurance and COBRA benefits, one million long-term jobless are at risk of losing benefits this month, with more than 200,000 set to lose their benefits in the next week alone before Congress reconvenes.

Tell your Senators they must restore extended unemployment and COBRA benefits retroactively as the first order of business. And tell your member of the House of Representatives that you need them to co-sponsor the Local Jobs for America Act to support one million good-paying full-time jobs.

Tags: jobless benefits extentsion, Jobs, jobs report, Local Jobs for America Act, long-term unemployment, unemployment