This figure is up from 8.2 percent in August 2011 but down 0.2 percentage points from September 2010′s unemployment rate for PA. Comparably it’s still almost one full percentage point below the national unemployment rate of the United States. This time around, unlike in August, Batman — or at least the Pittsburgh production of “The Dark Knight Rises” — couldn’t add jobs in terms of movie extras and others employed in the production.

There were 26,000 more jobs added to the Pennsylvania workforce in September but 7,000 more people added to the labor force, the Labor Department declared.

Behind the drop was a fall of 8,300 jobs in local government as that sector continues to struggle in the wake of budget cuts. There were 1,500 fewer manufacturing jobs in August, the first time manufacturing employment declined this year. There were 5,400 fewer jobs in leisure and hospitality as summer employment ended.

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Maine Department of Labor officials say a computer glitch has delayed unemployment benefit payments to thousands of recipients.

Officials blame software intended to prevent fraud and mistaken payments for the problem, which Department spokesman Adam Fisher says has affected at least 4,600 people whose claims did not process properly.

Others who tried to file claims over the Internet or through an automated phone system got error messages and may have just given up, he says.

Fisher says the problem affected only those who filed weekly unemployment claims on Sunday or Monday morning and are collecting benefits under the Emergency Unemployment Compensation Tier 1 or Tier 2 extensions.

He says the software issue has been fixed, and payments are being reprocessed today, but the benefits will not be deposited until Friday, at the earliest.

The problem did not affect people filing through the regular state unemployment program, on Emergency Unemployment Compensation Tier 3, or on the Extended Benefits program, Fisher says.

Source: http://www.mpbn.net/Home/tabid/36/ctl/ViewItem/mid/3478/ItemId/13779/Default.aspx

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The unemployment rate dropped to 9.5 percent for the month of June even as the U.S. government dropped 225,000 Census jobs, the Labor Department reported Friday in another sign that the economy is facing a vulnerable recovery.

Private businesses added 83,000 workers to their payrolls in June, an improvement since May and worse than analysts expected.

The unemployment rate fell as 652,000 people out of work gave up on their job searches and left the labor force. People who are no longer looking for work aren’t counted as unemployed.

“The unemployment rate fell to 9.5 percent from 9.7 percent as the 301,000 decline in household employment was more than offset by a drop of 652,000 in the labor force, thus the rate fell not because of a pick up in job gains,’ Miller Tabak analyst Peter Boockvar told Fox Business Network.

The nation has 7.9 million fewer private payroll jobs than it did when the recession began in December 2007.

All told, 14.6 million people were looking for work in June. Counting those who have given up their job searches and those who are working part time but would prefer full-time work, the underemployment rate edged down to 16.5 percent from 16.6 percent in May.

In responding to the numbers, President Obama said Friday that the Census job losses were a “planned phaseout” and the economy has shown six months of gains of about 600,000 jobs in the private sector, though he acknowledged it was not enough.

“Make no mistake, we are headed in the right direction, but as I was reminded on at trip to Racine, Wis., earlier this week, we’re not headed there fast enough for a lot of Americans,” he said, speaking at Andrews Air Force Base before boarding Air Force One on his way to a memorial service for Sen. Robert Byrd in West Virginia.

The president then announced that the Commerce and Agriculture departments will invest in 66 new projects across America to build broadband access in areas with little or no access

“In the short-term we expect these projects to create about 5,000 construction and installation jobs across the country,” he said. “The long-term economic gains to these communities that have been left behind in the digital age will be immeasurable.”

As expected, the report elicited strong criticism from House Minority Leader John Boehner, who has been in a verbal tussle all week with President Obama over the economy.

“This jobs report is a disappointment for every family and every small business who heard President Obama declare just weeks ago that our economy is ‘getting stronger by the day,’” Boehner, R-Ohio, said in a written statement.

“The writing is on the wall for President Obama’s ‘stimulus’ policies and everyone — taxpayers, economists, and the rest of the world — sees it but him. How much longer are we going to continue with this disastrous spending spree that is scaring the hell out of the American people and piling debt on our kids and grandkids?” Boehner asked.

Indeed, the economic picture is not the model of recovery that the American public had hoped would occur by now.

Housing and unemployment numbers out Thursday showed that the expiration of the $8,000 homebuyer tax credit may have contributed to a 30 percent drop in contracted homes. The Commerce Department reported last week that new home sales fell 33 percent last month, also to the lowest level on record.

The stock market also is struggling to approach pre-recession highs. After touching 11,000 in April, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed the second quarter at the lowest level for the year, and down 10 percent from just three months ago, to below 10,000.

And manufacturing orders dropped to their lowest level since October. The index fell by the largest monthly decline since December 2008.

A Congressional Budget Office report out Wednesday underscored the implications for the country’s long-term health of a persistently weak economy. Fewer jobs means fewer taxpayers, which means less revenue for the government. If intensive federal spending is not yielding a return on investment, the government is that much deeper in the hole.

Under one scenario, the CBO said debt would reach 109 percent of GDP by 2025 and 185 percent by 2035.

Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., the ranking member on the Ways and Means Committee, said Friday’s unemployment report is clear indication that there is too much taxing and deficit spending going on in Washington.

“Employers simply do not know what to expect next from Washington or how much it will cost them,” he said in a written statement. “The result is an unemployment rate that is unacceptably high.”

White House senior economic adviser Christina Romer tried to focus on the positive aspects in the economic report, noting the 83,000 private sector jobs added last month and the dip in the unemployment rate.

“These continued signs of healing are important, particularly given the recent volatility in world markets and the mixed behavior of other recent economic indicators,” she wrote in the White House blog. “However, much stronger job gains are needed to repair the damage caused by the financial crisis and put the millions of unemployed Americans back to work.”

For source see: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/07/02/unemployment-drops-percent-jobs-shed-june/

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Pennsylvania’s rate remained below the national rate of 9.9 percent and has been at or below the national rate for 85 of the past 88 months. The state’s rate was up 1.2 percentage points from April 2009, while the U.S. rate was up one percentage point from a year ago.

Pennsylvania’s seasonally adjusted civilian labor force – the number of people working or looking for work – rose by 12,000 residents in April to 6,470,000. The majority of the labor force gain was due to an increase in resident employment of 10,000, which grew for the fourth consecutive month, while resident unemployment inched upward by 2,000. Pennsylvania’s labor force was up 38,000 from its April 2009 level.

Pennsylvania’s seasonally adjusted total nonfarm jobs rose by 34,000 in April – the largest single-month gain since February 1996.

In April, eight of 11 supersectors added jobs, with the biggest gains seen in professional and business services up 12,200; trade, transportation and utilities up 8,300; and leisure and hospitality up 5,900. Manufacturing was up 4,400 in April – the third consecutive monthly increase.

Pennsylvania’s jobs count was down by 28,600, or 0.5 percent, from April 2009. This was the smallest over-the-year job decline for the state since October 2008. The United States’ job count was down by nearly 1.4 million jobs (or 1.0 percent) from April 2009.

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High unemployment remains the most difficult obstacle to economic recovery. And the surge in unemployment caused by the Great Recession also has exposed two parts of Pennsylvania unemployment compensation law that need to updated.

A new law would create a voluntary work-sharing program, by which some employers would be able to reduce hours for all employees rather than lay off some employees. The workers would be able to receive unemployment compensation for their lost hours. For example, a company pondering a 20 percent layoff instead could reduce total hours by 20 percent.

The company’s severance costs would be mitigated and it would not lose valuable skills or worry about having to retrain workers later. Workers would lose less money than through a layoff.

Sandi Vito, secretary of Labor and Industry, said the program has been successful in 18 other states. Pennsylvania should join them.

The second initiative would modernize the formula to calculate a laid-off worker’s eligibility for benefits. Now the state uses wage data from the first three of the last four quarters, excluding the current quarter. That system, a hold-over from the days of pre-computerized payrolls, renders about 30,000 Pennsylvanians ineligible for benefits, Ms. Vito said.

Adoption of the program also would make the state eligible for as much as $273 million in additional federal funding. So the program would not adversely affect the unemployment compensation fund.

Source: http://thedailyreview.com/opinion/unemployment-rates-remain-economic-recovery-obstacle-1.791928

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We have something a little bit different for you today to check out. It’s a video on how to get the job you want presented by Padraig Hyland of the business leadership training video website – MeetTheBoss.Tv

Discover the secrets on how to get the job you want. Padraig’s not promising miracles, but implenting the strategies in this video is a really good head start…

Enjoy..

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3. Seven states hit hard by Jim Bunning’s delay on unemployment benefits

The unemployment rate in February was 12.5%.

Despite hints of an economic turnaround, some of the 2.3 million unemployed in the state found March the toughest month yet. That’s because tens of thousands have been out of work so long that their unemployment checks will be cut off within the next few weeks. They’re not helped by the $18-billion measure signed Thursday by President Obama that extends jobless benefits for many Americans through June 2.

The Employment Development Department estimates that about 100,000 Californians will have exhausted their benefits by this weekend.

“Jobs have not been quickly multiplying, so there’s a lot of people who are still in need of assistance,” said Loree Levy, a spokeswoman with the Employment Development Department.

California payrolls increased by 4,200 nonfarm jobs in March, primarily in the sectors of manufacturing, educational and health services, and leisure and hospitality. Still, the unemployment rate rose as many who had been discouraged by the job hunt resumed their search.

The construction, information, government and financial activities sectors continued to shed jobs, the EDD said. California has lost more than 1.3 million jobs since December 2007.

The unemployment rate in Los Angeles County remained steady at 12.4% in March, as employers added 9,900 jobs, led by the leisure and hospitality sector with 3,700 jobs. Orange County’s unemployment rate increased to 10.1%, from a revised 9.8% in February, although employers in that county added 7,300 jobs.

The Inland Empire, which includes Riverside and San Bernardino counties, gained 5,700 jobs but still saw its unemployment rate rise to 15%, up from a revised 14.8% in February.

Typically, unemployment benefits in California last 26 weeks. But in the last two years, four sets of federal extensions have added 53 weeks. Another program, called FED-ED in California, added 20 weeks on top of that, bringing the total potential benefits to 99 weeks.

That’s the longest duration of jobless benefits made available in recent memory, the EDD’s Levy said. But employers remain cautious about hiring. On average, there are 5.5 job applicants for every opening, according to Maurice Emsellem, policy co-director at the National Employment Law Project. For those about to lose benefits, the clock is ticking.

“They’re on the leading edge of the demand, and for the first time, there’s no more further weeks being discussed,” Levy said.

Some unemployed workers will be helped by the federal measure passed Thursday. They had already qualified for previous extensions of benefits but were not able to receive them because Congress had not yet authorized the funding. Emsellem estimates that the measure will help 424,000 people who otherwise would have run out of benefits by the end of the week.

But other jobless workers, such as Dave McCord, feel ignored by Congress. The 53-year-old San Francisco resident got his last unemployment check three weeks ago. The telecommunications engineer has been out of work since March 2008, and he estimates that he’s sent out thousands of resumes and spent countless hours searching for employment.

McCord doesn’t have health insurance, and worries that if he doesn’t find a job soon, he’ll have to move in with his grown children. He signed an online petition urging Congress to grant additional unemployment benefits to people like him. But he knows that further extensions are unlikely.

“I recognize that there should be a limit, but if there’s six people looking for every job, we have a special situation,” he said. “Now, we don’t have a consistent safety net.”

But some economists said that extending benefits could create a long-term unemployment problem similar to that in some European countries. Alan Reynolds, a senior fellow at the conservative Cato Institute, says unemployment insurance benefits discourage people from looking for work. He estimates that extending benefits increases the unemployment rate by 1.7 percentage points.

To reduce the unemployment rate, he says, states should reduce the amount of benefits available.

“It sounds harsh, but if you want to improve the fiscal situation, you have to get people back to work,” he said. “This will encourage it. It’s all about incentives.”

Michael Patterson, a 45-year-old aspiring actor, says he’d much rather have a job than collect benefits.

Patterson is on his third extension of benefits. When he first lost his job with a temp agency, he gave up his apartment and moved in with his family in Palmdale. But, he said, they too are struggling financially, so he moved out a few months ago. He now pays $210 a month to sleep on the floor of a friend’s apartment, and he sometimes goes to the L.A. Mission to eat.

“It’s not good to depend on unemployment benefits that any moment could be cut off,” he said.

Many of the long-term jobless in California were employed in industries decimated by the recession, including construction and business and professional services, said Esmael Adibi, an economist at Chapman University.

“For those people, the outlook is grim,” Adibi said.

About 39% of the unemployed in California — about 843,000 people — have been out of work for 27 weeks or more. That’s more than twice as many people as a year ago.

Many companies are squeezing more work out of existing employees and delaying hiring anyone new, said Philip J. Romero, dean of the College of Business and Economics at Cal State L.A. Productivity grew 6.9% in the fourth quarter of 2009, the steepest growth rate since 2003, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

For some who run out of unemployment insurance and still can’t find a job, the only recourse is to go on welfare. Laid-off warehouse worker Charles Valentino, whose benefits stopped coming a few months ago, found himself applying for general relief in a Social Services office in downtown L.A. this week.

He’d much rather be working, he said. He now sleeps in a room with four other people, collects food stamps and hopes to find a job so he can be reunited with his two children.

“I tried real hard to find something,” he said, holding his belt, which he had to take off to pass through the office’s security. “It’s frustrating.”

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Pennsylvania’s rate remained below the national rate of 9.7 percent and has been at or below the national rate for 84 of the past 87 months. The state rate was up 1.5 percentage points from March 2009, while the U.S. rate was up 1.1 percentage points from a year ago.

Pennsylvania’s seasonally adjusted civilian labor force –– the number of people working or looking for work –– rose by 6,000 residents in March to 6,458,000, the highest level in 14 months. Resident employment rose 2,000, while unemployment was up 5,000. Pennsylvania’s labor force was up 19,000 since March 2009.

Pennsylvania’s seasonally adjusted total nonfarm jobs rose by 22,600 in March – the third increase in the past six months and largest single-month gain since April 2005. March’s biggest supersector gains were seen in education and health services, up 6,700; leisure and hospitality, up 5,200; and construction, up 4,900.  Manufacturing added jobs in back-to-back months for the first time in nearly three years.

Pennsylvania’s job count was down 84,300, or 1.5 percent, since March 2009. This was the first time the over-the-year job decline was below 100,000 since December 2008.  The United States’ job count was down 2.3 million jobs from last year, a 1.8 percent drop.

Editor’s Note: A breakdown of Pennsylvania’s employment statistics follows.

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Regional and State Employment and Unemployment – March 2010 (Bureau of Labor Statistics, Apr. 2010)

Regional and state unemployment rates were little changed in March. Twenty-four states recorded over-the-month unemployment rate increases, 17 states and the District of Columbia registered rate decreases, and 9 states had no rate change, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Forty-four states and the District of Columbia recorded jobless rate increases from a year earlier, 5 states had decreases, and 1 state had no change. For the third consecutive month, the national unemployment rate was 9.7 percent, up from 8.6 percent in March 2009…

State Unemployment (Seasonally Adjusted)

Michigan again recorded the highest unemployment rate among the states, 14.1 percent in March. The states with the next highest rates were Nevada, 13.4 percent; California and Rhode Island, 12.6 percent each; Florida, 12.3 percent; and South Carolina, 12.2 percent. North Dakota continued to register the lowest jobless rate, 4.0 percent in March, followed by South Dakota and Nebraska, 4.8 and 5.0 percent, respectively. The rates in California, Florida, and Nevada set new series highs, as did the rate in Georgia (10.6 percent)…

An economic recovery is definitely underway and some sectors of the economy are doing quite well.  Unfortunately, unemployment is not one of them.

Unemployment is a lagging indicator and this recovery is no exception to that rule.  I wonder when we will see articles about the ‘jobless recovery’ as we did so frequently in the last recession?

Source: http://blogs.marketwatch.com/fundmastery/2010/04/16/unemployment-peaks-in-california-florida-nevada-georgia/

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But the economic outlook remained sluggish, with the Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, cautioning that recovery would be slow and arduous as unemployment remained “unacceptably high”. Most economists tip the unemployment rate to stay above 9 per cent for the rest of the year.

Official data was expected to show that employers added up to 200,000 new jobs last month, only the second time the economy has not shed workers since the onset of the recession in late 2007.

The figure – which compares with a loss of 36,000 jobs in February – was expected to have been inflated by the temporary hiring of up to 100,000 people to help the government conduct its 2010 census.

But commentators said the result would be welcome nonetheless. “Just getting a number with six digits – over 100,000 – is, I think, very much encouraging to a lot of folks who really believe that none of this counts until we start creating jobs,” Jeffrey Kleintop, the chief market strategist at LPL Financial in Boston, told Associated Press.

Car makers – and manufacturers generally – reported a better month. Heavy discounting in the light of Toyota’s huge safety recall helped lift new car sales by 24 per cent in March to 1.07 million vehicles.

Toyota recorded a 41 per cent gain – and Lexus, its luxury brand, a 42 per cent lift – beating the local makers Ford (up 40 per cent) and General Motors (21 per cent). Chrysler Group sales fell 8.3 per cent.

Manufacturing figures also raised hopes that economic recovery was beginning to gain traction despite its minimal impact so far on employment growth, with US factory output in March growing at its fastest rate for more than five years.

The economic data spurred Wall Street higher on Thursday, with the Dow Jones index adding 70 points to 10,927 points, a year high. All key indices have climbed in the first quarter, with the Dow up more than 4 per cent this year and the broader S&P 500 index 5 per cent stronger.

The two key markers have risen by 66 per cent and 73 per cent respectively since the market’s nadir in March 2009.

The failure of this to reflect in the real economy, however, continues to concern Barack Obama and his strategists, who have been alert to signs that billions of dollars of stimulus money was beginning to lift economic activity.

Though the administration’s rescue actions undoubtedly stabilised the financial system, a Gallup poll shows a growing number of Americans (26 per cent) believe Mr Obama deserves some blame for the recession.

The sentiment adds further worry to congressional Democrats facing voters in mid-term elections in November. Mr Geithner said the administration was “very worried” about how more than 8 million jobs lost in the recession could be recovered. And he acknowledged that it appeared “deeply unfair” that some financial institutions that got taxpayer-paid bailouts were emerging in better shape from the recession than millions of ordinary Americans.

But Mr Geithner said Mr Obama had no choice but to support then-president George Bush’s bailout. The alternative would have been to “stand back” and do nothing, “and that would have been calamitous for the American economy”.

Sources: http://www.smh.com.au/business/high-jobless-rate-to-weigh-on-us-recovery-20100402-rjt2.html

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