The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its employment report this morning. The results are – at best – indifferent.
Nonfarm payroll employment increased by 162,000 in March, and the unemployment rate held at 9.7 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Temporary help services and health care continued to add jobs over the month. Employment in federal government also rose, reflecting the hiring of temporary workers for Census 2010. Employment continued to decline in financial activities and in information. …
Temporary help services added 40,000 jobs in March. Since September 2009, temporary help services employment has risen by 313,000.
Employment in health care continued to increase in March (27,000), with the largest gains occurring in ambulatory health care services (16,000) and in nursing and residential care facilities (9,000). …
Employment in federal government was up over the month, reflecting the hiring of 48,000 temporary workers for the decennial census.
Overall, unemployment went up in March to 23,840 million (seasonally adjusted). While that’s a bit lower than December’s peak of 24.354 million, it’s nearly five million more than March 2009’s figure of 18.976 million – the first full month after passage of the stimulus bill. Additionally, the average duration of unemployment increased again to 31.2 weeks, the highest it’s been in months.
Of particularly interest to a cheap-shot artist like me is the increase in federal government hiring. Expect this trend to continue. And public-sector employment is not a good thing, for three reasons:
1. Public sector employees cost too much.
2. We can’t fire them no matter how bad they are
3. They are a permanent lobby
Indigestible fact of the day: because public workers get money from taxpayers, everything they get means less money for you.
H/T on the Reason TV video to Moody via Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis.
Related posts:
Twitter
Facebook
RSS
LinkedIn