Today, the BLS announced the job report for May 2010. The results: unemployment at 9.7% and 431,000 new jobs.
To the blinded eye, this seems like great news. Is the economy turning around? Will more Americans stop giving up on finding jobs and try to rejoin the workforce again? Unfortunately, these numbers aren’t nearly as good as they sound.
As The Hill reported:
“The economy added 431,000 jobs in May, but nearly all of them were temporary workers hired by the Census. The private sector added 41,000 workers, according to the report issued Thursday by the Labor Department, while the unemployment rate dipped from 9.9 percent to 9.7 percent. Census 2010 added 411,000 temporary employees in May, according to the report.”
So less than 10% of the jobs are something other than taxpayer-provided, and most are temporary. In other words, the unemployment problem remains huge.
The Hill also reported:
“The 41,000 workers hired by the private sector is a much lower total than what had been forecast by private analysts and could serve as a disappointment to the Obama administration, which had expected a strong report”
Our country thrives economically with an increase in private sector jobs. Congress and the Administration need to focus on making it easier for companies to hire workers — only then will the economy start truly turning around.