Friday, April 6, 2012

March jobs report: Hiring slows, Unemployment falls

The March job report showed that hiring has slowed, as the 120,000 jobs added during the month fell short of economists' expectations. In February, the economy added 240,000 jobs. Unemployment fell to 8.2%, as 164,000 workers left the market, which mostly included white women. Part of the slowdown may have been attributed to the unseasonably warm winter months in January and February. The retail industry was hit the hardest, with almost 34,000 workers losing their jobs. On the other hand, restaurant and bars created almost 37,000 jobs. Of the 8.8 million jobs lost during the financial crisis, only about 3.6 million have been added back, so we are still not out of the dark. On another positive note, the underemployment rate fell to 14.5%, the lowest it has been in 3 years. Yet Republicans are reacting to the job report by slamming Obama's record.

4 comments:

Nathan Barnett said...

What do you think we need to do to stimulate the economy enough make up for this loss of jobs and get back the pre-recession unemployment rate?

Allyn Wilson said...

Is Obama's record the one that needs to come into question? This is not at all a sarcastic question, is one person to blame for how the economy as a whole is performing or should someone else take, or at least share, the blame?

Guanyi said...

This article is quite contemporary and shared a lot of common views towards today's economy. Although the unemployment is still high, it is still in the process of recoveryl. No economy can jump from 11% unemployment to 5% full employment in like one or two years. As long as the trend is good, we have hope to see it coming along. The best thing about it is the fact that labor force participation is getting up. That will drag the unemployment rate stagnant or even down, but that means people are more confident in job market.

Anonymous said...

I agree, we can't blame this all on Obama. And there has been progress in his methods. As Leah stated 3.6 million of the 8.8 million jobs lost, have been restored. It takes time to make up for these drastic losses and not sure that all who are complaining about the situation understand this.