80,000 job losses, unemployment spikes (jobs, employees, economy, Arizona)

[Wild Style]

^^

I don't know much about Texas, what are your thoughts?

[cdelena]

Unemployment has reached 5.1%. Although worse than it was I believe that is the average for the last 16 years. The negative spin and prediction of a recession is overplayed in the press.

[Wild Style]

what does the average have to do with anything? We saw recessions in 2001 with a recovery that took two to three years and then another recession before that in the 90s and another one in the 80s. With recessions becoming the norm over the last decade of course the average would be that high.

[cdelena]

Originally Posted by Wild Style

what does the average have to do with anything? We saw recessions in 2001 with a recovery that took two to three years and then another recession before that in the 90s and another one in the 80s. With recessions becoming the norm over the last decade of course the average would be that high.

You have to compare to something to know what is the expected norm...

Year Rate
1920 5.2 %
1928 4.2
1930 8.7
1932 23.6
1934 21.7
1936 16.9
1938 19.0
1940 14.6
1942 4.7%
1944 1.2
1946 3.9
1948 3.8
1950 5.3
1952 3.0
1954 5.5
1956 4.1
1958 6.8%
1960 5.5
1962 5.5
1964 5.2
1966 3.8
1968 3.6
1970 4.9
1972 5.6
1974 5.6%
1976 7.7
1978 6.1
1980 7.1
1982 9.7
1984 7.5
1986 7.0
1987 6.2
1988 5.5
1989 5.3
1990 5.6%
1991 6.8
1992 7.5
1993 6.9
1994 6.1
1995 5.6
1996 5.4
1997 4.9
1998 4.5
1999 4.2
2000 4.0
2001 4.7
2002 5.8
2003 6.0%
2004 5.5
2005 5.1
2006
Jan.2 4.7
Feb. 4.8
March 4.7
April 4.7
May 4.6
June 4.6
July 4.8

[Pimpy]

Originally Posted by Wild Style

^^

how does that tie in to the over all economy?

It means that if you're unemployed and living somewhere like Michigan where you know the economy sucks and isn't going to get any better, quit whining and bitching and get your a-- down to Texas. They're hiring!

[HappyTexan]

Originally Posted by Pimpy

It means that if you're unemployed and living somewhere like Michigan where you know the economy sucks and isn't going to get any better, quit whining and bitching and get your a-- down to Texas. They're hiring!

LOL yeah ! We've had tons of California transplants move into the big Texas cities over the past year driving our home prices up since it's so cheap here compared to California.

[Wild Style]

Originally Posted by Pimpy

It means that if you're unemployed and living somewhere like Michigan where you know the economy sucks and isn't going to get any better, quit whining and bitching and get your a-- down to Texas. They're hiring!

rofl true, true. But if they are doing that bad, they may not have the ability to pick up and move.

cdelena

thank you for the info!

[Philip T]

Originally Posted by Wild Style

^^

I don't know much about Texas, what are your thoughts?

Texas will keep doing ok while energy prices stay up. When the recession spreads out wide enough to drop consumption, and energy prices fall, Texas will sink, too.

But since things in the real world have "overshoots" it will not turn down hard until a little while after the energy prices start to drop, and that will create a very hard fall when it catches up here (Texas). Played this game before.

As far as all the unemployments beat and re-beat in this thread. That has become as much or more a political tool as the various inflation indexes. Since those numbers are massaged, the real meaning has become questionable. Best standards are still want ads and pay rates. Good numbers on those and you things are good. Not so good numbers and they are not.

[lchoro]

The headline BLS figure excludes workers who are currently not looking for work because they've given up temporarily. The U-5 unemployment rate of 5.9 percent is probably more comparable to historical figures.

Table A-12. Alternative measures of labor underutilization

[Steve Hazzard]

Originally Posted by Pimpy

It means that if you're unemployed and living somewhere like Michigan where you know the economy sucks and isn't going to get any better, quit whining and bitching and get your a-- down to Texas. They're hiring!

IMO, you're taking a rather simplistic view of the mobility of the labor pool. The majority of employees can't simply uproot their family to move from a labor surplus market to a labor shortage market. The imbalances of available labor are often skill specific and are narrowly segmented. A person with skills "A, B and C" is not going to fit into a labor market that is requiring skills "D,E and F".

In my 12 years as an owner-operator for United Van Lines Household Goods Division, I moved many single persons and families from and to all points in the US and parts of Canada that were specifically for employment purposes. Some followed through successfully, many did not. The worst case that I recall was a young couple with several children and a pregnant wife that I moved from the East Coast to Arizona, the company went bankrupt 4 months after the family arrived in Arizona and had purchased a new home. The whole situation was so sad that I privately moved the family back to the East Coast on my trailer at no expense with the exception of fuel and labor. The story had a happy ending as the husband found a terrific job in Connecticut.