Job openings drop as hiring remains elusive Competition for jobs reaches record level as openings drop amid economic uncertainty ap By Christopher S. Rugaber, AP Economics Writer , On Tuesday January 12, 2010, 12:51 pm WASHINGTON (AP) -- The competition for jobs is intensifying as companies are reluctant to hire new workers, leaving millions of unemployed Americans chasing fewer job openings. There were nearly 6.4 unemployed workers, on average, for each available job at the end of November, according to Labor Department data released Tuesday. That's up from 6.1 in October and a record high. There were 1.7 jobless people for each opening in December 2007, when the recession began. Job openings fell sharply to 2.42 million in November from 2.57 million in October, according to the department's Job Openings and Labor Turnover survey. That may sound like a lot, given the depths of the recession, but it's the lowest number of job openings since July 2009 and the second-lowest since the department began tracking the data in 2000. It's also about half the peak level of 4.8 million, reached in June 2007. The decline shows that even as layoffs are slowing, hiring hasn't picked up. The economy lost 85,000 jobs in December, the department said last week, an improvement from the average job cuts of 691,000 per month in the first quarter of last year. The unemployment rate was 10 percent, the same as in November. Many economists expect the improving trend will continue and the economy will likely add jobs in the first quarter of this year. But with so many people out of work, the unemployment rate is forecast to top 10.5 percent later this year. Companies are uncertain about the sustainability of the recovery, which has been fueled by government stimulus efforts such as tax breaks for home buyers. Those supports will start to fade this spring, and economists worry whether consumer or business spending will be able to pick up the slack. "In light of that uncertainty, I don't think anybody's rushing to add large numbers of employees," said Dan Greenhaus, chief economic strategist at investment firm Miller Tabak. Still, the so-called JOLTS report shows that even in a recession, millions of Americans are hired and fired. Employers hired almost 4.2 million people in November, the report said, an increase of about 130,000 from the previous month. But the number of people who quit their jobs, were fired or were laid off rose to 4.3 million that month.
I swear, most of this stuff is coming across as a "No shit" kind of situation for me though I guess that's because I'm at the forefront of this damn recession being the generation that I am. Even night shift jobs are hard to find these days and these are at the most lowest positions. I'm seriously beginning to think trading may be the best option I have of getting out of my parents' house and this is an idea I literally thought up on a whim because I thought I was going to get into the games industry!
AEP hittin it out of the park ... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...er-into-depression-as-Wall-Street-revels.html America slides deeper into depression as Wall Street revels December was the worst month for US unemployment since the Great Recession began. By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard Published: 6:35PM GMT 10 Jan 2010 The labour force contracted by 661,000. This did not show up in the headline jobless rate because so many Americans dropped out of the system. The broad U6 category of unemployment rose to 17.3pc. That is the one that matters. Wall Street rallied. Bulls hope that weak jobs data will postpone monetary tightening: a silver lining in every catastrophe, or perhaps a further exhibit of market infantilism. The home foreclosure guillotine usually drops a year or so after people lose their job, and exhaust their savings. The local sheriff will escort them out of the door, often with some sympathy ââ just like the police in 1932, mostly Irish Catholics who tithed 1pc of their pay for soup kitchens. Realtytrac says defaults and repossessions have been running at over 300,000 a month since February. One million American families lost their homes in the fourth quarter. Moody's Economy.com expects another 2.4m homes to go this year. Taken together, this looks awfully like Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath. Judges are finding ways to block evictions. One magistrate in Minnesota halted a case calling the creditor "harsh, repugnant, shocking and repulsive". We are not far from a de facto moratorium in some areas. This is how it ended between 1932 and 1934, when half the US states declared moratoria or "Farm Holidays". Such flexibility innoculated America's democracy against the appeal of Red Unions and Coughlin Fascists. The home siezures are occurring despite frantic efforts by the Obama administration to delay the process. This policy is entirely justified given the scale of the social crisis. But it also masks the continued rot in the housing market, allows lenders to hide losses, and stores up an ever larger overhang of unsold properties. It takes heroic naivety to think the US housing market has turned the corner (apologies to Goldman Sachs, as always). The fuse has yet to detonate on the next mortgage bomb, $134bn (£83bn) of "option ARM" contracts due to reset violently upwards this year and next. US house prices have eked out five months of gains on the Case-Shiller index, but momentum stalled in October in half the cities even before the latest surge of 40 basis points in mortgage rates. Karl Case (of the index) says prices may sink another 15pc. "If the 2008 and 2009 loans go bad, then we're back where we were before â in a nightmare." David Rosenberg from Gluskin Sheff said it is remarkable how little traction has been achieved by zero rates and the greatest fiscal blitz of all time. The US economy grew at a 2.2pc rate in the third quarter (entirely due to Obama stimulus). This compares to an average of 7.3pc in the first quarter of every recovery since the Second World War. Fed hawks are playing with fire by talking up about exit strategies, not for the first time. This is what they did in June 2008. We know what happened three months later. For the record, manufacturing capacity use at 67.2pc, and "auto-buying intentions" are the lowest ever. The Fed's own Monetary Multiplier crashed to an all-time low of 0.809 in mid-December. Commercial paper has shrunk by $280bn ($175bn) in since October. Bank credit has been racing down a hair-raising black run since June. It has dropped from $10.844 trillion to $9.013 trillion since November 25. The MZM money supply is contracting at a 3pc annual rate. Broad M3 money is contracting at over 5pc. Professor Tim Congdon from International Monetary Research said the Fed is baking deflation into the pie later this year, and perhaps a double-dip recession. Europe is even worse. This has not stopped an army of commentators is trying to bounce the Fed into early rate rises. They accuse Ben Bernanke of repeating the error of 2004 when the Fed waited too long. Sometimes you just want to scream. In 2004 there was no housing collapse, unemployment was 5.5pc, banks were in rude good health, and the Fed Multiplier was 1.73. How anybody can see imminent inflation in the dying embers of core PCE, just 0.1pc in November, is beyond me. Mr Rosenberg is asked by clients why Wall Street does not seem to agree with his grim analysis. His answer is that this is the same Mr Market that bought stocks in October 1987 when they were 25pc overvalued on Shiller "10-year normalized earnings basis" â exactly as they are today â and bought them at even more overvalued prices in 2007, long after the property crash had begun, Bear Stearns funds had imploded, and credit had its August heart attack. The stock market has become a lagging indicator. Tear up the textbooks.
Stay as long as you can with your parents, I wish I had the chance years ago to stay, cost of renting and everything else between is expensive. I am looking for a better job myself, but no such luck as everything is totally limited. My cable bill has gone up 3 straight months in a row, its now close to $150 a month and that doesn't even include all those hundreds of movie channels, no telephone either. I know some people who have moved back home and I know some people who have went out and bought, most I know rent though. Average rent around where I live is approx 700-800 for a studio, 1 bedrooms start at 1200-1300, of course if you move to condo style apartments with amenities 1 bedrooms soar to 1500-1750 depending on location. Stay as long as you can, if they try to say bye bye offer them $300-$500 a month, that should keep you there for another 2 years or just print out articles like the one I just posted and put them up on the fridge on a regular basis to show them how bad the economy really is.