The Great Unsaver

In February, when the current President was bashing the economy to sell the spendulous bill, I observed there were still 142 million Americans going to work. Last week we were told unemployment dropped .1%, but even Big Media reported the drop was due to people falling out of the labor force, not because more people were back to work. Total employment was slightly over 140 million.

Inside the data, we see that there were 133.5 million employed in non-farm jobs. The non-farm figure from February was 138.5 million. A little math reveals that non-farm employment dropped by five million from February to August of this year.

That period coincides with Barry’s Presidency. To adopt his language, since the Immaculation, Obama has prevented or unsaved five million jobs. Not quite a million a month, but we are a resilient people.

Rebecca Wilder looked at the data and found the job unsaving was spread pretty equally across economic sectors. Everybody hurts. Her conclusion, though, is cautiously optimistic:

My point is: don't break out the champagne - we are not out of the woods yet.

But I stand by my previous conjecture: that the productivity gains (yes, gains) indicate that firms are firing much more coincidentally than in previous recessions. And as soon as demand resumes, private industries will have to hire in order to satisfy production. Of course, that has not happened yet.

Hattip to Kevin Jackson for the idea of jobs “unsaved”.