Well, it's that time of the month again and the BLS has released the employment report for June 2009.
Link to BLS Report
Link to U-6
Once again the employment situation worsened over the course of the previous month with a greater than expected loss of 467,000 jobs in June and the unemployment rising to a slightly smaller than expected 9.5%.
These reports coupled with the very bad continuing unemployment claims data (showing that people's unemployment benefits are ending before they can find employment) sets us up for another down leg in the economy and seems to be showing us that the stimulus either a) isn't working, b) wasn't timely, or c) wasn't large enough. The only "encouraging" news in this report is that U-6 went up in line with U-3, which means that the number of people either discouraged or employed part-time for economic reasons is no longer outpacing U-3. Remember though, U-3 still is going to have to absorb all of those people in U-6 before it can start shrinking in a measurable and sustainable way.
I will post the birth/death joke of an adjustment as soon as I can find it, but the most important data point from this report is the very accurate (accurate for what they are measuring) rate, which now stands at 9.5%.
Also, the average hours worked per week fell to 33.0 hours, the lowest on record and another reason to assume we will have a jobless recovery, as that number will have to increase before new jobs are added (unless we reduce the workweek).
UPDATE:
The birth/death model added 185,000 jobs this month, so the real survey loss was 652,000.
Birth/Death