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CBC Launches “For The People” Jobs Tour

My Spirit DC — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 16:54:11 +0000

The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) launched a “For the People” Jobs Initiative Monday, including nationwide job fairs and town hall meetings in response to alarmingly high unemployment rates in Black America.

A job fair and town hall at Cleveland State University in Ohio will be the first part of the CBC’s iniative.

TheGrio.com reports:

“Recently, the CBC Members unanimously introduced the Congressional Black Caucus ‘For the People’ Jobs Initiative Resolution (H. Res. 348) to encourage the House of Representatives to immediately consider and pass critical jobs legislation to address the growing jobs crisis throughout America,” CBC Chairman Chairman Emanuel Cleaver, II said on Friday, in response to the release of July jobs numbers. “We want to get 10,000 people hired. There is no time to waste. The time to act is now, and we are on the move.”

Losing Out! Men Gain 768,000 Jobs, While Women Lose 218,000

My Spirit DC — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 20:32:33 +0000

According to an extensive study conducted by Pew Research, women are most scathed by the rising unemployment.

Within the pass two years men, who were once considered most effected by unemployment, have gained 768,000 jobs, while women have lost 218, 000.

The Huffington Post Reports:

In 15 out of 16 economic sectors, men have done better than women in the recovery. Since June 2009, there have been five sectors — including finance, manufacturing, and the federal government — where men gained jobs and women lost them. In five others — among them education and health services, and leisure and hospitality — men gained jobs at a faster rate than women. And in another five sectors, including construction, information, and local government, women lost jobs at a faster rate than men.

The Pew study revealed that in five periods of recovery since 1970, women either gained more jobs than men or loss fewer jobs, making this turn of events an ironic revelation. However, the overall unemployment rate for men is still higher than women with 9.5 percent and 8.5 percent respectfully, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Jobless Claims Climb By 35,000

admin — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 20:56:04 +0000

NEW YORK — The number of Americans filing for their first week of unemployment benefits jumped sharply last week, two weeks after hitting a 2-1/2 year low below 400,000.

There were 445,000 initial jobless claims filed in the week ended Jan. 8, the Labor Department said in a weekly report Thursday.

That’s up 35,000 from a revised 410,000 the previous week — when jobless claims climbed back above 400,000 after falling below that mark for the first time in more than two years.

Last week’s rise was bigger than expected. Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had forecast initial claims to edge up to 415,000 in the latest report.

Jobless Claims Jump For Two Weeks In A Row

Winston Chaney — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 19:00:37 +0000

VIA CNN MONEY:

The number of Americans filing for unemployment insurance for the first time jumped for the second week in a row, according to government data released Thursday.

There were 484,000 initial jobless claims filed in the week ended April 10, up 24,000 from an unrevised 460,000 the previous week, according to the Labor Department’s weekly report.

Economists surveyed by Briefing.com had expected new claims to fall to 440,000 in the latest week. The number of new claims was the highest since the week ended Feb. 20, when initial claims totaled 486,000.

The Labor Department also tracks the four-week moving average of initial claims, which smoothes out volatility in the measure. That number reached 457,750 for the week, up 7,500 from the previous week’s downwardly revised average of 450,250.

The Labor Department attributes the jump in initial claims to volatility related to the Easter holiday and other so-called “administrative” factors.

“I agree with this because all of the labor market indicators are looking up” said Gus Faucher, senior economist for Moody’s Economy.com.

The number of people filing continuing claims totaled 4,639,000 in the week ended April 3, the most recent data available. That figure was up 73,000 from the preceding week’s 4,556,000 claims, and above the 4.58 million economists expected, according to Briefing.com.

The four-week moving average for continuing claims totaled 4,638,500, down 13,750 from the preceding week’s revised average of 4,652,250.

Continuing claims data exclude people whose benefits expired or those who have moved to state or federal extensions. It reflects those filing each week after their initial claim until the end of their standard benefits, which usually last 26 weeks.

U.S. Unemployment Rate Holds Steady

Winston Chaney — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 15:00:52 +0000

VIA USA TODAY:

The unemployment rate remains at 9.7 %, though employers added 162,000 jobs in March, the Labor Department just reported.

The news comes as Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says the economy is recovering, but it will take many months to dig out from the recent financial crisis.

The unemployment rate will “stay unacceptably high for a very long time,” Geithner said Thursday on the Today show, citing “the damage caused by the recession.”

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs tweeted that the new numbers are a good sign of recovery: “Employers added most jobs in 3 years in March.”

House Republican Whip Eric Cantor of Virginia said an increase in jobs is better than the alternative, but “excessive spending in Washington has created a huge debt burden that threatens the future of our nation, our workers, and our families.”

President Obama discusses the economy later this morning during a trip to Charlotte, N.C.

Source

DMV Unemployment Rate Hits 20-Year Record

Winston Chaney — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 17:30:04 +0000

VIA THE WASHINGTON POST:

The unemployment rate in the Washington region soared to 6.9 percent in January, according to government data released Friday. It is the area’s highest level in 20 years of record-keeping.

The region’s jobless rate was 6.2 percent in December and, not seasonally adjusted, 5.4 percent in January 2009.

January’s data show the fragility of the region’s economic recovery, analysts said. Long-term unemployed workers, many of whom had stopped looking for work, saw signs of economic improvement and reentered the labor force to apply for jobs. But job losses continued in such sectors as construction, retail and financial services. Even professional and business services, historically one of the region’s best sectors, lost thousands of jobs during the 12-month period ending in January.

“By and large this is viewed as bad news,” said Anirban Basu, chairman and chief executive of Sage Policy Group, a Baltimore economic and policy consulting firm.

“It suggests many people began a job search in the Washington area, but precious few of them found jobs,” Basu added. “For people looking for work, it’s still a tough market.”

During the 12-month period ending in January, tens of thousands of jobs were added in the region — 17,000 in the federal government, 3,000 in education and health services, and 1,000 in leisure and hospitality.

Discouraged workers are also finding opportunities. For instance, area think tanks are beginning to extend the hours of temporary workers — and offering more of them permanent positions, said Wendy Zanarotti, associate director of Washington-based Help Unlimited Temps.

“We started seeing a pivotal turn in temp hiring in January,” Zanarotti said.

“The beginning of the year, there were more long-term opportunities — three to four weeks. Last year, it was more short-term — less than a week,” she added. “We have definitely seen their willingness to hire temps more” for permanent positions.

Still, 46,900 jobs were lost during the 12-month period, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The big losers were construction (-13,000), state and local government (-7,000), financial services (-6,000), professional and business services (-5,000), and retail (-2,000).

Despite the losses, thousands of unemployed people returned to the labor market to look for jobs, experts said.

“We brought in 8,000 more [unemployed] people who had not been in the labor force the previous January,” said Stephen S. Fuller, director of the Center for Regional Analysis at George Mason University.

“We’re losing six jobs for every one new job added,” Fuller said. “We’re going backward.”

Fuller said he expects that the February snowstorms, which closed many businesses, will boost the unemployment rate further that month. He said he thinks the rate will continue rising in March, then begin to slowly decrease in the second half of the year.

Even as unemployment here worsens, the Washington region has fared better than most of the country. The national unemployment rate, seasonally adjusted, was 9.7 in January.

Source

Churches Feel The Pinch Of Higher Unemployment Rates

Angel — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 17:30:24 +0000

The country's high unemployment rate is affecting giving in churches around the country. According to Baptist Press, Ed Stetzer with LifeWay Research said tt's not surprising church giving is more impacted by unemployment than the stock market or GDP. A LifeWay survey of Protestant pastors found 35-percent reported giving in their churches was flat compared to the same period in 2008, while 29-percent said g... Read more..

D.C. Unemployment Rate Rises

Winston Chaney — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 17:00:42 +0000

VIA THE WASHINGTON POST:

Unemployment in the Washington region rose slightly in December, to 6.2 percent, according to government data released Tuesday, pushed up largely by an increase in the District’s jobless rate.

The District’s unemployment level during the same period rose from 11.8 percent to 12.1 percent and probably was the chief factor in bumping up the metropolitan area’s overall jobless rate by 0.1 percentage point.

“The District represents a small fraction of the overall population of the metro area, but it represents a higher proportion of the area’s unemployment,” said Anirban Basu, chairman and chief executive of Sage Policy Group, a Baltimore-based economic and policy consulting firm.

Calling the city’s 12.1 percent unemployment rate a “crisis,” D.C. Council members introduced legislation Tuesday aimed at augmenting President Obama’s proposed tax incentive to small businesses that create jobs. Under the council’s measure, small businesses or corporations that agree over the next five years to hire 10 employees at salaries of at least $55,000 would receive a credit on their business franchise tax equivalent to half the amount they pay in federal payroll taxes — or about $2,100 per new worker.

“No matter where you are in the city, unemployment is a crisis,” council member Kwame R. Brown (D-At Large), who drafted the legislation, said at a news conference. Though the unemployment rate is only 3.2 percent in Ward 3, which includes Friendship Heights and Chevy Chase, and 5.9 percent in Dupont Circle’s Ward 2, according to November data from the D.C. Department of Employment Services, it is high elsewhere in the city — reaching 28.5 percent in Ward 8, which includes Anacostia.

“It’s a citywide problem, one that we need to tackle together,” he said.

The aim, officials said, is to reduce the unemployment rate by two percentage points and add about 6,600 jobs.

The region’s 6.1 percent jobless rate was well below the national rate (not seasonally adjusted) of 9.7 percent in December. Analysts expect the federal government, which has protected the region from the full extent of the recession, to fuel major job growth in the future.

In a report issued last week, Woods & Poole Economics projected that the Washington area — along with New York, Los Angeles, Houston and Dallas — will be among the leading metropolitan areas in job growth from 2011 to 2040. The number of jobs in the region is predicted to increase 49 percent, to 5.9 million from 3.9 million.

Jobs would be created in the federal government as well as health-care, professional and business services, local and state government, and construction, the report said.

The Washington area “has a long history of growth, and we expect that to continue,” said Martin K. Holdrich, a senior economist at Woods & Poole.

Economic development officials and community organizers, however, point out that hiring probably will not occur uniformly across the region and probably will exacerbate the disparity between the top and bottom wage earners. White-collar jobs for highly educated, highly skilled employees are growing, but the number of jobs is shrinking for undereducated workers with less skill.

“Many District residents do not work in the federal government and don’t benefit” from the expansion of the workforce, added Basu, the economic analyst. “District residents appear to have been more impacted than other residents in the region by the downturn in retail and construction.”

Overall, the number of unemployed people in the region remained steady at about 191,000, said Glenn Wingard, an economist at Moody’s Economy.com.

Sectors that experienced a net gain in jobs from December 2008 to December 2009 were the federal government (13,000) and education and health (4,400). Those that experienced net losses during that period were construction (-14,000), financial services (-5,400) and retail (-6,800). Professional and business services were flat.

Unemployment “seems to be peaking, which is good,” Wingard said.

Source