http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103929070
U.S. Jobless Rate Climbs to 8.9 Percent
NPR.org, May 8, 2009 · The nation's unemployment rate surged to 8.9 percent in April, its highest level in more than 25 years, but the 539,000 jobs shed represented the fewest losses in six months, the Labor Department said Friday.
The figure was up from March's 8.5 percent rate, but the easing of job losses surprised most economists and broke a five-month streak of payrolls shedding 600,000 or more jobs, a possible sign that the recession is bottoming out.
Economist Hugh Johnson of Johnson Illington Advisors cautioned that one month's numbers are not enough to go on, but that the snapshot looks encouraging.
The data is "clearly better than I thought," he told NPR. "Things are not quite as bad as they were in the previous six months."
"I would be cautiously optimistic. The jobless numbers seem to be leveling off," he said.
Wall Street cheered the latest data, sending stocks up sharply in early trading Friday.
Companies, however, remain cautious and many laid off Americans are finding it tough to find new work. On Thursday, the Labor Department reported a record number of people receiving state unemployment benefits.
DuPont Co. and Microsoft Corp. were among the companies this week that said more staff cuts might be needed.
If laid-off workers who have given up looking for new jobs or have settled for part-time work are included, the unemployment rate would have been 15.8 percent in April, the highest on records dating back to 1994. The average workweek in April remained at 33.2 hours, matching a record low in March.
Meanwhile, the Commerce Department reported on Friday that wholesalers slashed inventories for a seventh straight month in March, dropped them 1.6 percent. That followed a 1.7 percent drop in February, the largest monthly decline on records that go back 17 years.
Wholesalers saw sales plunge 2.4 percent in March, the fifth decline in six months.
Since the recession began in December 2007, the economy has lost a net total of 5.7 million jobs.
March's payroll figure was revised to show a decline of 699,000, instead of the initially reported drop of 663,000. Job losses in February were also revised to 681,000 from 651,000. Government jobs were up by 72,000 after falling by 6,000 in March.
The service sector lost 269,000 positions; manufacturing shed 149,000 and construction cut 110,000 for in April.
We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. The only thing that really worried me was the ether. There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke
It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...." Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson
