Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Steve Benen reports, US economy adds 155k jobs in December, jobless rate unchanged:
The BLS reported
this morning that the overall economy added 155,000 jobs last month,
while the revised unemployment rate was unchanged at 7.8%. As is often
the case, austerity measures undermined the employment landscape —
while America's private sector added 168,000 jobs in December, the
public sector lost 13,000 jobs, including over 11,000 teachers.
(President Obama's American Jobs Act was intended to prevent this, but
congressional Republicans refused to vote on his proposal.)
In
terms of revisions, October's numbers were slightly worse than
previously reported, while November's totals were revised up by 15,000.
For
the 2012 calendar year, the nation added over 1.83 million jobs, which
is down slightly from 2011, but is the second best annual total since
2005. The private sector, meanwhile, added over 1.9 million jobs last
year.
As Benen says, "focusing on deficit reduction and austerity instead of economic growth and job creation is misguided and counterproductive."
Here's another chart, this one showing monthly job losses/gains in just the private sector since the start of the Great Recession. [There has been 34 consecutive months of private sector job growth.]