New Year Starts With Very Weak Job Gains
With the January job report, it's clear that the job market is continuing to struggle --
and that no political party has the answers for solving it.
The U.S. Labor Department released its monthly jobs report -- showing that the new year
started with weak job gains. Only 36,000
jobs were added to the economy in January, far fewer than almost 150,000 new jobs expected
by economists.
While the severe winter weather played some part in the lower numbers, it's also clear that
many businesses continue to wait on the sidelines -- hedging their bets and waiting for
more signs that the economy is in full recovery mode before moving ahead with hiring.
In the meantime, rather than looking for solutions, both political parties point fingers
at who has -- or does not have -- the solution for creating jobs. The most obvious answer
is that there is little the national government can do to create jobs -- they must
be created by businesses, many of which are hoarding profits and giving out bonuses to
top management while not hiring.
Overall, there was little change in hiring and jobs across all major industries. Manufacturing
and retail did see some increased hiring, but there were job losses in construction and
transportation -- as well as with government employees (as states continued to cut workers
in an effort to deal with massive budget issues).
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