Last month, the United States’ unemployment rate was 9.8%, the newest figures show that the unemployment rate has increased to 10.2% and it is the highest it has been since April of 1983. Official figures show that the country lost 190,000 jobs with the majority of the losses coming from construction, retail, and manufacturing.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics says that there are 15.7 million unemployed people in the country, which is up over half a million from the previous month. The number is up 8.2 million from the time the recession officially began in December 2007.

The number of people who are long-term unemployed (those who have been unemployed for at least 27 weeks) has remained pretty steady. There were 5.6 million long term unemployed people in October; meaning that 35.6% of those who are unemployed have been unemployed for at least 27 weeks.

According to the New York Times, the “underemployment” rate (part-time workers and people who have given up the job hunt altogether) is at 17.5%.

Of course this is more bad news, but it is right on track with what analysts were thinking. After all, they did say that unemployment would hit 10% by the end of the year.

There are fields that aren’t doing so badly; the health care profession has added over half a million jobs since the beginning of the recession.

Perhaps with the holiday season, some of the merchants will be hiring at least temporary workers. While temporary work isn’t the most ideal for a lot of workers, it is something that will help pay the bills for those who are cash-strapped right now.

In Louisville, Kentucky things are not good when it comes to employment figures. Times are tough everywhere, but it looks like there are thousands of people who are having a hard time keeping the lights on in their homes.

A General Electric factory has just created 90 jobs in the area, while 90 jobs isn’t exactly a huge number, it is a great deal to those without work. The factory jobs, building washing machines, pay about $27,000 a year and GE is generous with benefits.

For the first three days that the job was listed, GE received a whopping 10,000 applications for the 90 jobs that were open.

Over the recession, this particular plant hasn’t laid off any of its unionized workers even though the union and the company did have to come to a decision to cut wages a bit. The same job paid $19 four years ago.

The unemployment rate for the county the Appliance Park is in is 10.6% and there are nearly 40,000 unemployed.

These kinds of jobs can be hard to come by and that’s why I think that the openings got so much attention and so many people applied. A job with good benefits as well as “ok” pay for someone with little education and experience in the field means that the applicant may be able to pay the mortgage for the month.

Factory jobs are often the hardest to come by in a recession because many factories start slowing down production in a recession because spending has slowed down greatly. When factories slow down or cut way back on production, then the owners and managers have to decide who to let go and when to do it.

In GE’s case, at this Appliance Park, no one had to be let go even if they did take a pay cut. That’s not the case at all appliance facilities. In Oxford, MS, a Whirlpool Plant closed its doors a year or so ago and left thousands jobless. In a small town in Mississippi, that is a huge blow to the local economy as well as the surrounding areas where many of the people who worked at the plant lived. I am not sure what those people had to do to make ends meet after the plant closed, but I know that they had to try to find work somewhere else and in Mississippi, that kind of work isn’t easy to come by.

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Good news came out today about unemployment. In June, unemployment reached 9.5% and the numbers for July came out and unemployment actually fell to 9.4%. While the decrease isn’t much, it does mean that less jobs are being cut than before and people are actually finding work.

Some analysts were predicting the unemployment rate to go up to 9.6%, which is a slower increase than before, but they weren’t expecting a decrease like we have seen.

This good news may be a bit deceiving though. The workforce in July fell by 422,000 positions. That number is higher than the 155,000 losses in June. This difference in numbers would suggest that some of those out there are simply giving up the search for work altogether. If this is the case, then they wouldn’t be included in the unemployment figure because the unemployment percentage only includes those who are actively seeking employment but are unable to find it.

However, some sectors are showing promising signs of improvement. Take manufacturing for example. In July, 52,000 manufacturing jobs were lost. This is the first time since September 2008 where job losses in this sector were under 100,000.

In July, average hourly earnings also increase from $18.53 in June, to $18.56 an hour.

Overall, this news is promising. I am looking forward to seeing how things turn out in the long run. I am anxious to see how the government will operate when it is out of the recession. The current administration has only had to deal with bad economic news, and I am really looking forward to seeing how things will be handled when there’s no crisis to handle in the financial system.

It looks like repaying student loans could be getting a bit easier. Beginning this week, those with federal student loans can apply for a program that is offered by the Department of Education that reduces or caps the monthly payments based on income and also forgives any remaining balances after 25 years.

There is a calculator at http://www.ibrinfo.org to help any borrowers determine if they are eligible for the plan.

The program comes from the Cost Reduction and Access Act signed into law in 2007 from the Education Department. The Act authorized the creation of the repayment plan for Federal Family Education Loans and Direct Loan borrowers for those who borrow Stafford and PLUS loans.

So, the Act makes monthly payment amount to less than 10% of income for the 1 million people that are expected to enroll in the program. Payments wouldn’t exceed 15% of any income above $16K a year. Those who earn less than $16K would not have to make monthly payments.

This is a great program for those graduating colleges now simply because it has become harder and harder for new graduates to afford their loans after the deferment period for their loans. As of right now, no matter what, the new graduate has to begin paying back their loans after the deferment period, even if they haven’t had any luck finding a job. So this Act will help those.

With the unemployment rates at the highs it is now and new graduates graduating college with more debt than ever this could really help some people out. If I am unable to find a job, I know that it will definitely help me out.

After I finish this post up, I’m headed over to that website listed above to check my eligibility. I only have one private loan for less than $1,500 and the rest of my loans were Federal Stafford loans (mainly subsidized).

The consumer confidence level has increased at a fairly steady rate for a couple of months, but the numbers that came out today were much higher than anticipated as far as the increase goes. The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index has a 14.1 point surge; increasing to 54.9 for the month of April. Economists were expecting a Confidence Index of 42.3. This comes just months after February’s lowest level ever of 25.3.

The consumer confidence interval is determined by a mail survey of a sample of 5,000 households in the United States from May 1st to May 19th.

The confidence interval increase means that many people are feeling more optimistic about the future of the economy including unemployment numbers. However, it is likely that the unemployment rate will hit just above 9% in the next month or two. It is nice to see that people think that things are getting better even when there are is a lot of grim news coming from economic indicators.

Today when the consumer confidence index rose, so did stocks. The Dow Industrial Average rose over 200 points, or 2.4 percent today after the news about consumer confidence came out.

The consumer confidence index began falling in October, when it fell to 38.8. At the time, it was the lowest number that had ever been seen since the Conference Board started tracking the confidence index.

This, by no means, means that people will begin throwing their money away on expensive clothing or other things that have been deemed “unnecessary” in the past few months. What was once just something that may have been a splurge is now seen as frivolous and is possibly frowned upon in some social circles.

Another reason that people aren’t spending their money on those things is that there aren’t as many jobs going around anymore and that the actual wealth going around is much less than it was even a year ago. With people having less and less money, I am actually pretty surprised that the consumer confidence index has risen. Perhaps people are getting so tired of the current economy that they are being overly optimistic on the surveys that are being sent out.

I mean, even this news is coming out in a positive light following the news last week that housing prices has fallen in the sharpest decline in the first quarter of the year.

In my optimistic point of view, perhaps this is the beginning of some sort of economic increase. If you follow the stock market, commodities market, and other indicators, then perhaps things are starting to pick up.

Graduates of the 2009 collegiate year are going out into the unknown in the worst labor market since their parents graduated. Many graduates will get into careers that have nothing to do with their degree, if they get a job at all. With a national average 9% unemployment rate, it is obvious that throwing more job seekers into the market does not provide the best statistics for employment acquisition. Even worse, they will make lower wages for at least the next decade, as opposed to those who graduated in better times, such as 2006 and 2007, before the economy partially disintegrated.

For most 2009 college graduates, luck will be the key. According to Lisa Kahn, a Yale School of Management economist, the damage that can be done to a new career by a recession can last for up to 15 years. She used the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, a government data base, to assess the effects of a recession on an individual’s career by tracking wages of white men who graduated before, during and after the deep 1980′s recession.

Kahn found that for each percentage-point increase in the unemployment rate, those who graduated and joined the workforce during the recession earned 7% to 8% less in their fields than comparable workers who graduated in better times. The effect persisted over many years, with recession-era grads earning 4% to 5% less by their 12th year out of college, and 2% less by their 18th year out. Basically, someone who graduated in December 1982 when the unemployment rate was at almost 11% made, on average, 23% less his first year out of college and 6.6% less 18 years out than one who graduated in May 1981 when the unemployment rate was under 8%. For a typical worker, that would mean earning $100,000 less over the 18-year period.

According to economists and experts, one reason behind declining wage potential is that the caliber of jobs available in a recession, and their accompanying wages, tend to suffer. High-end firms hire fewer people and drive down salaries because jobs are in high demand and people are likely to accept a job for less and less money. In turn, it also means that many graduates end up with lower-wage, lower-skill jobs at lower quality, less prestigious firms or in firms outside their field of interest. Once the economy picks up and they try for better jobs, these workers have to learn skills they should have been developing immediately out of college. In the meantime, colleagues who graduated in a better economy have already developed these skills and progressed much further, making them more likely to receive a better position.

This year, employers will hire 22% fewer college graduates than last year, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers, an organization of career counselors. At the same time, colleges are expected to see the highest number of graduates in a decade. The average starting salary for graduates who do get jobs, meanwhile, dropped to $48,515 this spring, down 2.2% from the same time last year. Not to worry though. College education was not for ‘nothing’. Collegiate level employees still make more than those with high school diplomas.

The Labor Department said Thursday that first-time requests for unemployment benefits jumped to 667,000 from the previous week’s figure of 631,000. Analysts had expected a slight drop in claims.

The 667,000 new claims are the most since October 1982, though the labor force has grown by about half since then. The four-week average of initial claims, which smooths out fluctuations, rose to 639,000, the highest in more than 26 years.

Companies like JPMorgan Chase are eliminating jobs left and right. JPMC just decided to lay off 12,000 employees.

The bad news, if that wasn’t bad enough, is that while the unemployment rate is 7.6% now, economists expect it to rise to 9% by the end of the year.

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The decline in price came after the Fed released some very depressing news about the economy:

The Fed said it expects the economy will contract between 0.5 and 1.3 percent this year. Its previous forecast from November had a 0.2 percent contraction as the worst case scenario.

The Fed also said the unemployment rate will likely rise to between 8.5 and 8.8 percent this year, higher than its previous forecast of between 7.1 and 7.6 percent.

Source

But, that’s what the news is telling us…that if we are offered a job to take it because the unemployment rate is ridiculous and that hundreds of thousands of jobs are lost every month. It is terrifying to me, and I can only hope that things get better by the time I (as well as everyone else I’m graduating with) begins looking for work.

However, now there are too many homes on the market, and new home and commercial building has come to a crawl. Many undocumented workers are in construction so they are currently losing out.

I can’t find any recent numbers (since after the markets crashed in August) that distinguish between illegal and legal immigrants, but the numbers from April-June show that the unemployment rate for Latinos (both legal and non) was higher than it was for non-Latinos:

…the Hispanic jobless rate — immigrant and native-born alike — climbed to 6.5% in the first quarter of ’08 (non-Hispanics are at 4.7%). Compare that to late 2006, when Hispanic unemployment rates got closer than ever before to non-Hispanic rates, at 4.9% to 4.4%. Latinos have lost a lot of ground, particularly the immigrants among them. Their immigrant unemployment rate is 7.5% now; for those who have arrived since 2000, it’s 9.3%.The report doesn’t distinguish between illegal and legal immigrants, but it’s known that illegal workers are overrepresented in construction, the industry that has taken the the biggest lumps. Over 220,000 Hispanic immigrants lost construction jobs in the last year. -TIME; Jun 4, 2008

So, what does this mean for immigration? Well, it isn’t exactly headline news anymore and reports are showing that apprehension of illegals is decreasing; this may mean that there just aren’t as many to catch?

Since the beginning of the year over 1.2 million jobs have been lost in the U.S. The stock markets, however, are taking the news easily. Usually, it seems, when bad news comes out it takes a dive, but so far today, trading is up.

In a way I feel like a broken record. Every month, for 10 months straight, the same news comes out about unemployment. Since July I feel like I have been the bearer of bad news. Besides the stock markets going up a little today, there isn’t a lot of good news floating around to report.

Recently, I went searching for open positions related to my field of study (marketing and communications) for when I graduate in May. Even when searching through the countless positions on websites like Monster.com, most positions for my major requires years of prior experience. I also visited a college career fair, and most of the companies were not looking for business graduates, but were more interested in pharmacists. Unfortunately, four or five years of sitting through endless lectures and classes devoted to the very position they are seeking does not count toward any experience.

The odds are not in their favor either. In the second quarter of 2008 the Labor Department gave the unemployment rate for those in the 20 ? 24 year old group (the age range is the most likely for new graduates). Unemployment had risen from 7.7% last year to 9.8% this year.

Most colleges require students to intern and/or take career counseling to give them an idea of what to expect after graduation, but they still do not guarantee a job after graduation.

So you are a new graduate and cannot seem to stand out of the crowd? Here are a couple of tips to make you and your resume more noticeable to potential employers.

- Network. Networking helps you stand out to an employer. If you are currently a student, become involved in plenty of events and groups related to your major.
- An impressive resume. Making your resume stand out is not as hard as it may seem. Little things such as adding a picture of you or using positive phrases can add luster to an otherwise vanilla resume. An example of a use of positive language is instead of saying you have no experience in a certain area, saying that you are willing and open to learning is obviously more constructive. Employers are always more open to someone who is willing to conform to their job descriptions, rather than a position having to conform to an applicant.

Student loans are creeping up and you still have not gotten the position to build your career on? Some people have begun to take a more unconventional attitude on job hunting: Create their own career by starting their own business. Once thought to be something only highly experienced professionals do, new graduates are starting businesses related to their fields of study.

If you have the ambition to start your own business, either a new graduate or someone who just has some new or great ideas, here are a few pointers that may help you start:

- Since you are probably bogged down with debt (thanks to student loans), try to limit your start up costs. Internet companies generally have very low startup costs, as long as you have an idea as to what you?re doing. Starting a business with a friend can also limit your costs and you will have more than one person working toward a goal.
- Remember those old textbooks that you could not or did not sell? Some of them have some great ideas in them. I have kept marketing books just because I thought in the future they could come in handy.
- Have a business plan. If you have a business plan, even a simple one, you always have a reference point. Eventually we all hit road blocks, like writing essays and having an outline, a business plan can keep you in order.
- Finally, do not give up and work hard to achieve your goals. Getting through college was not easy (or cheap), so do not be discouraged if your business does not take off immediately. Successful businesses take patience, time and a LOT of hard work.

It is not hard to become discouraged by the declining job market. Plenty of people I know are working in fast food restaurants while waiting to land ?the job.? When the economy is good, graduates may get multiple offers with competing salaries, but now these offers are not landing in people?s laps like they once were. An applicant must do more to be noticed in today?s job market. So good luck graduates, I will be seeing you in May.