The Jobs Report for November 2008: The Worst Situation in a Generation

The Jobs Report for November 2008 was released at 8:30 EST this morning. It is bleak. Here are the major numbers. The unemployment rate went from 6.5% to 6.7%. The jobs number for November was –533,000. That is, there are 533,000 fewer jobs than a month ago. However, the previously released numbers for September and October were revised downward. The preliminary number for September of –284,000 was revised down to
-403,000. For October, the preliminary –240,000 is now –320,000. Taking just these revisions together, the numbers indicate 732,000 fewer jobs than we thought there were just yesterday. The total job loss has been 1,256,000 in three months. The November number was the worst in at least 34 years, when the data set I use began.

Over the last two days, I have discussed these two major parts of the Jobs Report. That is, the unemployment rate and the jobs number. On Wednesday, I talked of how the jobs number is misleading because it doesn’t account for population growth, and therefore the number of jobs the should be created by a growing population, and that are needed in order to keep our employment level stable. These days, that number is about 156,000 per month. I termed this number the “Jobs Expected”. So, when we hear that the jobs number was –533,000, that really means –688,000 fewer than the “break even” level. Compared my Jobs Expected number, this economy has fallen 1,725,000 jobs short in just the past three months.

Yesterday, I discussed the unemployment rate, and why I (among many others) think that the official number is a substantial underestimate, because the number of those wanting employment is underestimated, and the number of those employed is exaggerated. I discussed, in particularly, how this discrepancy has been much greater during the current administration that at any time in over a generation. I developed a simple “Adjusted Unemployment Rate”. The official number was 6.7%. My Adjusted Unemployment Rate stands at 8.7%, the worst in over 25 years. (It reached over 11% during the Reagan administration.)