Sunday, September 4, 2011

Happy No Labor Day!

It's always been ironic that Labor Day is marked by not working. That irony is heightened when the jobs report for the prior month comes out the Friday before Labor Day and indicates that zero jobs were created:
The U.S. economy slammed into a wall in August, failing to add any jobs for the first time in nearly a year and ratcheting up pressure on President Barack Obama to find a way to kick-start the sputtering recovery.
What's even more striking is the last time there was neither a net gain or loss of jobs was the last year of World War II, 1945.

There was a little bit of positive news in last Friday's Employment Situation Report. The labor participation rate and employment-population ratio did not decline. Of course, that's more than offset by the fudge factor of 87k jobs that brought the August numbers up to zero.

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