The BLS reported today that the Unemployment rate held steady in February at 9.7 percent and that 36,000 jobs were lost in the month. The good news is that the job losses continue to get smaller and are almost zero give the scale of employment.
The bad news is that the country is still loosing jobs. The number of unemployed continue to rise and the number of discouraged workers (which are not counted in the unemployed or unemployment rate) rose by another 139,000 individuals.
The employment and unemployment situation has not turned around yet. And as I indicated in a prior post, The Recession is Probably Over, But The Fat Lady Hasnt Sung Yet., the recession hasn’t been determined to be over. Without a change in the job situation from negative to positive, the likelihood of really ending the recession and maintaining a recovery, however slow, is quite questionable.
