Good news for the U.S. job market: The unemployment rate miraculously dropped from 9.8% to 9.4% in December, the biggest one-month drop in the official jobless rate since 1998! Coincidentally, this plunge in the number of Americans desperately seeking work coincides with more Americans dropping out of the labor force entirely, because there aren’t even enough new jobs to keep up with “natural growth” — 26-year-olds getting their GEDs and needing that Jiffy Lube job to help momma out at home, etc. — let alone provide work for the 15 million officially unemployed Americans. Of course the real official unemployment rate is 16.7%, because that number includes “discouraged workers” and people subsisting on seasonal or part-time or temporary work while still hoping for a full-time job again, someday.
At least the Nobama Administration is making good on its threats to fire a lot of government workers! The government payroll was cut by 10,000 jobs last month. Merry Christmas, people who actually believed a government job was “safe.”
Of the paltry 113,000 reported new private-sector hires, nearly half of those were lowly service jobs — what the business media calls “leisure and hospitality,” which sounds so much better than “motel housekeeper” or “Taco Bell cashier.” The other sector still creating a few jobs is Health Care, because keeping obese diabetics alive so they can continue to wash down KFC with 72-ounce buckets of iced corn syrup is the one assembly line this country will never lose. [Marketwatch]
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I think I will buy futures in cat food and hobo beans cause you just know those sales are going to skyrocket.
I think IntenseDebate has become self-aware and is going to eat us all alive.
Wonketteers + IntenseDebate = Skynet
Of the paltry 113,000 reported new private-sector hires, nearly half of those were lowly service jobs — what the business media calls “leisure and hospitality,” which sounds so much better than “motel housekeeper” or “Taco Bell cashier.”
So, nearly half of the jobs went to Mexicans?
They're taking our jerbs!
None of the part-time housekeepers at my hotel are Mexican. (Oh, yeah. Except for my daughter. She actually is 1/4 Mexican.)
OMG! They really are here to steal our jerbs!
You know, as long as I have my shotgun, my gold, and my Glenn Beck approved K-rations, who the hell needs a job?
All of my money is going into bananas.
Not the Cavendish, I hope.
Plantains. Because of our vibrant new Mexican-housekeeper-based economy.
Mine's going for drugs and alcohol…
Im investing in cat food and hobo beans. I sense a boom…
You know, I bet youo Rachel Ray could do wonders with cat food and hobo beans. So, that insufferable banshee will be around yet a while longer…
Obviously the election is having immediate results — see? the Republican strategy of tax cuts for Paris Hilton and Leona Helmsley's dog is already working!
I have a job, and I'm discouraged anyway. How does that statistic get counted?
One more thing: could the meme-stream media just once give us good employment news without a balancing just-Census-workers or but-their-jobs-actually-suck downer item to swallow with it?
Every new outlet strives to be fair and balanced now.
You'd think Obama would try to do more to fight unemployment, since it's staring him in the face in 2012.
Think pretty healthy government pension even if he loses. I don't think he's too worried.
Isn't that nice – the long-term unemployed have quit looking for work (except that smooth-voice mutha in Columbus) and they all ran out and voted Republican (at least the whiteys) in 2008 because they must have decided that an urban President wasn't going to help them. Got news for all you dumbasses….the only thing Boehner is gonna give you is the hard rod right up the ass – in keeping with GOP tradition.
Other growing job markets for the FUTURE
1) death panel stenographer
2) Tweet reviewer for CNN
3) condom collector and recycler
4) ham thief
5) TSA-1108 maintenance technician
6) Divorce lawyers for the spouses of Republicans who come out of the closet
7) Chinese as a Second Language tutors
What is the TSA-1108, a security theater robot that rapes you to check for dirty bombs in your colon?
constitutional scholar.
Hey the comments were freed! Feeling obsessive compulsive this morning, so I'll edit this double post…FOR FREEDOM
19) Blogpost prison guard
20) Congressional librarian/Tweet ombudsman
21) Walmart-bag fashion model
9. Congressional District Gerrymanderers, no knowledge or sense of geography required.
Actually, knowledgeable people with advanced software do the gerrymandering. This may be even scarier.
10) Survival seedbank teller
11) Meth preacher media liason
12) Death robot munitions depot greeter
13) Tea Party congressional staffer (you can never have too many)
14) swap meet manager
15) deconstructor of forclosed homes
16) Oprah self-help coach
17) professional tea party protestor
18) Rentboy/ Luggage Lifter
maybe these people wouldn't be unemployed if they didn't blithely expect jobs to exist somewhere. bootstraps, people!
Jeezus shit Ken, why do you hate our happiness so much? I've had the singular fortune of never having to live in one of these godforsaken strip-mall hells (just a dying rust-belt city once), and this still makes me depressed.
The hope that scams and myths and all the other chicanery masquerading as organized religion might someday (soon) finally die is no comfort.
judging by the recent mandatory, heart-warming segments produced by every media outlet, there's a lot of jobs to be had in voicework if you have the chops.
Yes, a seriously over-reported story.
Prepare your "will work for soppy human-interest media productions" signs
They should have hired that guy to read the Constitution, right?
Basil Marceaux really did lose his shirt in Tennessee's gubernatorial primary.
I think you mean Basil Marceauxdotcom, don't you?
it's folly to try to spend your way out of a recession – you have to fire-people your way out!
I'm one of the fully-employed who has watched his earning power drop precipitously over the last 5 years. This year promises actual pay cuts and /or benefit cuts. I guess they call my class "The Doomed".
This is all a plan by the rich establishment families to knock back the working and middle class families who did a bit too much economic climbing in the 50's through 80's for the establishment's taste.
Uppity damn blue-collars!
Hey, yo, we were spared from having to contribute more towards our health insurance, by the companyy deciding to increase the deductibles. My family, we like our prescriptions; my annual cost for prescription medication deductibles: $7,000.
Hooray, my comments have been freed!
Yo quiero empleo a Taco Bell!!
On the bright side, those people without jobs aren't having to pay $3+ a gallon to get to them.
Don't worry it will be 5 dollars soon enough and only the rich will be able to drive, the rest of us will all be on overloaded buses painted like a rolling Portuguese whorehouse like in South America.
The Great Recession: it's Green!
And as conservatards love to point out, you don't have to actually go stand in line at the unemployment office anymore. Bad news for those who think the unemployed should be shamed, but good news for their carbon footprint!
Green shoots, everywhere.
It's funny you say that because Metro Detroit here in Michigan had it's pollution levels drop pretty significantly over 2009 or 10 (can't remember which one), and traffic got better on the freeways…because so many people had either moved away or lost their jobs.
Even Captain Kangaroo has fallen on hard times.
Despite its obsessive-complusive downside, extreme couponing is starting to look better and better.
WalMart appears to be hiring geezer beefcake for their greeters, so there's that.
We shall refer to him as Two Pabst Wanker.
Seriously, if we really truly wanted full employment, two things. One) Universal , Socialized health care, embryo to grave. Two ) get rid of the minimum wage. How many of us are stuck at our present job because that is how we get our crappy health insurance? Me for one. I would be out there starting my own little consulting business, mentoring a couple of bright high school kids, pay them the same wage I got in high school, $1.13 / hour. After 6 months of working for me they will be in the top .01 % of computer technicians in the area and would be quite a catch for a company needing some entry level techs.
The march toward a permanent underclass continues!
If lemmings can be considered to be marching.
Is that nice Daley gentleman's new job at the White House reflected in those statistics or will that not show up until Q2 2011?
But not to worry. Businesses are booming! They hired 1.4 million people. Overseas.
Yay! US of America!
Heigh ho, heigh ho, it's off to part-time work we go!"
I'm guessing that most of the unemployed saw their new orange commander take over this week, moaning about deficits like they are really everyone's main problem, and though "shit sure ain't happening for me anytime soon."
Trash heap rummaging looks promising in 2011. Lots of scrap to salvage, all the food remnants I can eat, and I can take my kids to work with me! Win-win-win.
You, Sir, are the epitome of American Exceptionalism!
bootstraps, be-yatches!
Just don't leave your kids in the trash, or Steve King will shoot you with his .50 Desert Eagle.
Is there any way we can somehow install Paul Krugman as benevolent dictator of America for just four or five years? Not that I'm saying he has all the answers, just 99.7% of them.
Krugman would have Americans wearing their underwear on the outside within a month……
i was looking for a job, and then i found a job
and heaven knows i'm miserable now.
as one of the 15 million, i find myself spending a lot of time with the smiths.
Frankly, Mr. Shankly, this position I've held
It pays my way, and it corrodes my soul
All this sympathy for discouraged workers – and not one bit of concern for discouraged commenters!!!
John Boehner feels your pain. Or somebody's pain. Or something–fuck, that guy cries a lot.
I'm both–my only job these days is commentating and now my comments get disappeared when I post them! So I've apparently been fired without even the courtesy of being told so! If you see this, I've been rehired. WTF?
Don't worry, this won't be good enough for the Republicans. They won't be satisfied until they repeal the ENTIRE 20th Century. Bring on the Robber Barons and anarchists!
Judging from the P.O mail-bombs, the anarchists are back already.
There's dope selling. My last bud made my eyes pop out due to it being the same $600 per toilet that Saint Ronnie got in the 80's for a space age toilet seat. Also.
Then there's the Oldtimer's disease I got. And there's dope selling. My last bud made my eyes pop out. Put the glass one back in the water glass with the teef. Also. Did I mention the Oldtimer's, and some story, and Gina Lolabrigida and Wu Tang Orangedrink? They had a space age toilet seat, see, and, wait, what?
Makes me proud to be a votin' Republican
I say we dump this economy and make another based on the hobobean standard.
I believe we are well on our way. The Republicans won't be happy until they repeal the ENTIRE 20th century. Bring on the robber barons and anarchists!
I used to think that plumber was the best job you could have in the new information economy. Now even that sucks.
You sure about that? I thought Joe the Plumber was going to be making more than $250,000 a year. You know, after he got his license. And maybe learned something about plumbing. And overcame his crippling intellectual disability.
I have one word for you, Benjamin: Bindlestiffs. Outfitting and provisioning the new army of hobos, thats the wave of the future.
Screw that. I'm cornering the futures market in hobo beans.
Designer Hobo Outlet Centers: TRAMPS (with "R" backwards)
Reille Hunter got a confuze and applied for a job there.
The fragrance market will be huge!
Filthee Ballz by Dolce & Gabbana
Stale Pisspants by Davidoff
and Axe's Sour Asscrack
And for the new service industry, dumpster-side daycares.
Never mind the jobs, where are our comments? Hopefully Ken will see this in the two minutes before it gets eaten.
The government payroll was cut by 10,000 jobs last month.
See, you really can lower the unemployment rate by firing people.
in all fairness most of the government job cuts were actually due to attrition and then not replacing those who either retired or, more likely, died of obesity.
I have high hopes for my new line of designer hobo garb, I'm thinking of calling it JoadWear.
We gonna have that rabbit farm, right, George? Right?
My career goal is to move to some agricultural state and plant ten thousand acres of hobo beans. I will then begin collecting federal farm subsidy checks and start bitchin' about out of control federal government spending and socialism – that's my American dream.
Does it come in other colors? That one doesn't work for me.
At the local job fair, Goodwill was hiring!
Growth industry, no doubt.
The American People want to know what that Smiley face is covering up on that old man bag!
Me?
Whenever I see any lobbyiest, I pledge to the American people that my boner is out in the open.
It's called "transparency"…
I'm going out on the highway with sign asking people to ask me about my God given gift of snark.
gubmint jerbs aren't REAL jerbs; they're socialmalist handouts using federal reserve printed monopoly monies! firing those marxist slackthings down at the dmv means MURRICA GETS MORE FREEDOMS TO SPEND ON JESUS.
also ain't no barry soetoro revenuer come ta take mah hard-earned money if i taint got no jerb! haw! take that, socialists! i kin buy my hfcs from th' messicans by tradin' my wife to 'em, fair n square, like the founding fathers used to do with their properties an suchlike.
The President's new economic adviser just said on NPR that our policy should be 'a rising tide lifts all boats'. Didn't we hear that during the Gipper's time?
oh fucking noes
Made me cringe, too.
Can we get more Idiocracy inspired alt-text?
I was looking for a job, and then I found a job
And heaven knows I'm miserable now
as one of the 15 million, i find comfort in the smiths.
" H.I., you're young and you got your health, what you want with a job?"
Yeehaw! Race to the bottom, y'all! Hold on to your butts! Wheeee…..!!!!
See? The Reagan Lite™ master plan is finally working! Now all that remains is to discourage the REST of teh poors, & VIOLA! Zero Unemployment aka Utopia! Ice-cold brews, dank bud & BJs for all!
He's the very image of "Save money. Live better."
Thanks to the private security industry there is no longer any reason to fear angry mobs!
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