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from the probably-not-coming-back-either dept.
The World Socialist Web Site reports
The US employment report for October released by the Labor Department on Friday, four days before Election Day, provided a snapshot of an economy that continues to be mired in stagnation. The net nonfarm payroll increase was a tepid 161,000, with the bulk of the new jobs, as in previous months, made up of low-wage service and part-time positions.
Economists had predicted a payroll increase of 173,000. Even with a combined upward revision of 44,000 jobs for the months of August and September, the overall rate of job-creation has slowed markedly, averaging 181,000 a month through October as compared to 229,000 for all of 2015.
The number of long-term unemployed remained at 2 million, comprising 25.2 percent of those officially counted in the government tally. These are extraordinarily high numbers for the seventh year of a so-called "recovery".
The decline in the official unemployment rate to 4.9 percent in October from 5.0 percent in September was not the result of workers joining the labor force and finding jobs, but the departure of 425,000 more working-age Americans, bringing the number of such workers who are outside the labor force to a near-record high of 94.6 million.
The labor force participation rate actually declined, reaching 62.8 percent in October versus 62.9 percent the prior month.
Via a paywalled story on May 29, 2012 in U.S. News & World Report, Economics professor Antony Davies, PhD said (Google cache) that it takes 180,000 new jobs a month just to keep up with population growth. So, anything less is actually a loss of US jobs.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Monday November 07 2016, @01:23PM
but the money supply is not keeping pace with this expanding capacity
Um, no?
I think you're confusing your monetary variables. M2 is in its eternal exponential growth to infinity. The problem is M2V velocity has cratered since 08 in a straight line downward with no uptick. One is like a balance sheet and the other is like a cashflow sheet. So figures in a bank account that are never spent or invested are growing explosively upward as usual with very little interruption or problem but the root of the problem is the larger and larger amount of money laying around isn't being spent on consumption or god forbid actual revenue generating capital investment.
The problem is there's nothing useful to invest in, so money just piles up at the top.
China's bubble is popping and their .gov has zero experience with the depression scenario that they're headed into. Perhaps they'll be "sane" perhaps they'll nationalize everything and re inaugurate the cultural revolution, who knows. The effect on the rest of the world of China crashing will be interesting. When Japan crashed we sent everything to China. Now that China is crashing we'll send everything to .... to ... who knows? Africa? India?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 07 2016, @07:17PM
All of the big ones in china are moving to Brazil and Africa and automating as fast as they can in china.