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The U.S. unemployment rate drops from 5.8% in Nov. 2014 to 5.6% in Dec. 2014, according to the Labor Department. But hourly earnings failed to register growth. Average hourly earnings declined in Dec. 2014 from the prior month, and increased by only 1.7% over the prior year, just a little bit above the inflation rate of 1.3%. Overall 2.95 million jobs were created in 2014. Yet 8.7 million Americans looking for a job could not find one. The U.S. Federal Reserve officials see tepid wage growth as a sign of slack in the labor market. The Dec. 16-17 Fed meeting minutes show that "most participants saw no clear evidence of a broad based acceleration in wages." The labor force participation rate is also stuck at a low level- 62.7% in Dec. 2014. The U-unemployment rate that includes involuntary part time workers and workers marginally attached to the labor force was at 11.2% in Dec. 2014. This includes workers too discouraged to look for work and people working parttime because they could not get full time work. It is steadily dropping from 16.6% in 2010 to 14.4% by 2012, 13.1% by 2013, and now 11.2% in 2014, showing steady improvement but still high....

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The Trump economic plan would use tariffs as a tool to get foreign companies to make in the US. It does not include incentives to American companies to create American jobs that won't be offshored and would be expanded, and keep American technologies and incentive based expansion with American companies. In this sense Trump's economic policies are indifferent to whether it helps American companies or not. Biden/Harris are determined to make it America that controls its own destiny. Why would foreign companies care about expansion and building America's leadership in technologies in the Free World, they would use their technologies in their own national interests. Even when they build factories for Chips as TMC of Taiwan is doing in Arizona they do so skeptical of the power of US engineering.  A holistic plan is missing when American leadership is turned over to foreign companies. Biden-Harris would use tax revenues from corporations to give them the best infrastructure and logistics in the world that supports their growth. This alone would add to America's growth by 1+ percentage points considering what we see in Indian growth with or without the best infrastructure. America's infrastructure is dilapidated. Trump lacks a plan to invest trillions of dollars in new infrastructure as Biden-Harris are doing. ...

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With continued job growth the US Fed is planning to continue its sequential interest rate increases. The Fed raised interest rates 0.75% at each of the last 3 Fed meetings and a fourth 0.75 rate increase is expected when it meets on November 1-2, 2022. This is the most rapid rate of increases since the 1980's and it is designed to bring inflation under control.

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Steve Jobs of Apple never intended the iPhone to be used as an ubiquitous device that is there all the time with user attention riveted to it. A computer scientist, Prof. Cal Newport of Georgetown University, says the vision of the iPhone presented by Steve Jobs at the Mosconi Center in 2007 was very different from what it has become today. It was an iPod that could make calls, help you listen to music, not a device on which you had to constantly check emails, constantly be on the alert for messages, use for getting instant breaking news you didn't need all the time. At the time in 2007 the App store did not exist and Jobs by design did not focus on apps believing that whatever apps there would be would be better designed to be aesthetically good by Apple engineers. It was an iPod that made calls, a engineer on the team that developed the iPhone at that time tells Newport. Jobs vision was of an iPhone that did a few activities well- helping people listen to music , get directions, make calls. What he did not want to do was to change the rhythm of people's lives. Newport calls it a shame that this vision got somehow diverted and disrupted by what happened afterwards. We have become so used to the constant companion model that we forget its novelty, only a little over 10 years ago none of this existed. As a computer scientist writing about the influence of technology on culture Newport says it is important to remember the magnitude of this unintended shift, to know that Jobs got it right the first time and that it would be better for many of us to return to the minimalist vision for the phone that Jobs espoused. ...

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Experts see strong growth in jobs in 2022. Employers added 431,000 jobs in March. This is the 11th straight month of job gains of over 400,000, the longest period of such growth since 1939. The unemployment rate fell to 3.6%, approaching the low unemployment rate of 3.5% in February 2020, just before the pandemic.

Low unemployment rate is boosting wages but not as much to keep up with inflation. The easing pandemic is also encouraging people to seek jobs. Many retirees are also coming back, and so are women. With 300,000 women joining the workforce in March 2022.

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Guardian report about search for work in Grimsby a small town in England, vape shops no jobs. The situation in small towns lacking job opportunity. What the elites in the UK and the US don't get.

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A report published by Capital Economics of Toronto, based on Labor Department data, shows the U.S. is not adding the kinds of jobs with the pay, benefits and hours of the 8.75 million jobs that disappeared during the recession. Labor Department data support this analysis. The number of food preparation and serving workers are expected to grow by 394,000 by 2018, but the pay is only $16,430 for these jobs. The good well paying jobs are continuing to be lost. Large employers such as Lowe's home improvement chain is eliminating 1700 managers, and adding 10,000 weekend sales positions and new assistant store manager positions. This use of parttime workers also reduces income levels of workers. The impact of this is to limit the consumer spending. As local government is shrinking from budget cuts, better paying jobs are being lost in state and local government, and workers are earning less in the new jobs that do similiar work.

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Izzo looks at the diverging picture presented by two Labor Department surveys of unemployment in the U.S. for July 2012- an increase of 163,000 jobs or 195,000 fewer people working. One, the Household Survey is based on survey of individual households counts people and the other the Establishment Survey based on a survey of employers counts jobs. If one person holds two jobs he would be counted twice in the Establishment Survey and once in the Household Survey. If a person is a unincorporated self employed person, a family employee who isn't paid, a farm worker who is employed but not paid he is counted in the Household Survey, but left out in the Establishment Survey. The Labor Department prepares a third measure of the number of people working by adjusting for multple jobholders and for workers not counted in the survey of businesses. By this third measure the U.S. economy added 108,000 jobs in July, which is far less than the 163,000 jobs shown added in the Establishment Survey. Because of the increase in parttime work it is likely that more people are doing multiple jobs which may explain some of this difference. Another reason could be the severe drought in the U.S. that may be reducing the opportunities for work for freelance construction maintenance and day laborers because of restrictions on water use. This shows that it takes several months of data to get some sense of where unemployment is headed, adjusting the numbers for unusual events or weather, and looking behind the numbers to the sectors generating jobs. In the first quarter of 2012 more jobs were generated in the U.S. because of a mild winter, followed by fewer jobs in the second quarter, which required looking at the two quarters together to get a better picture. Adjusting for the long term unemployed who have quit looking is also necessary to get a correct reading of U.S. unemployment levels....

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Justin Lahart offers these clues to a puzzle why is the US unemployment rate stable when no one is hiring? The 2025 US economic growth rate shows strong economic growth, the stock market is robust, and the unemployment rate is low, yet this is not reflected in the job market. What accounts for weak hiring? WSJ analysis shows that for US job market 2026- quit rate is too low at 3.2 million  (Dec 2025) instead of 4.5 million (March 2022), hiring is low at 5.3 million. And overall firms are not laying off people which is reflected in unemployment rate at 4.4%. As a result even with strong economic fundamentals the hiring is at low levels and opportunities for new jobs scarce. In previous years more people quit jobs, more people were laid off and some firms continued hiring. There is also uncertainty about tariffs that may be playing a part- companies can wait and see how the tariffs policy works out over the next 6 monthsand delay hiring. Ai may be another factor for some firms as they evaluate its impact on their hiring needs. Research at the Brookings Institution and the American Enterprise Institute shows that immigration crack down on entry into the US after Biden era surge means less people from overseas to hire and less from the pool of immigrants. A striking piece of this research is that instead of 140,000 jobs needed a month to keep the unemployment rate stable in 2024 the US economy now needs in 2026 after immigration crackdown only 15,000 jobs a month.  ...

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Effects of the two storms in Florida and North Carolina reduced job growth in October. Overall the unemployment rate was steady at 4.1%. Job growth and the unemployment come from 2 different surveys one from households for the unemployment rate and one from employers by the Labor Department for job growth.  The hurricanes and weather events meant people were still being paid but could not get to jobs during the month of October, the estimate of this number was 512,000 in 2024. In 2016 and 2018 with hurricanes this number was about 250,000 in each year. 512,000 in 2024 is double the size from 8 years earlier in 2016, it shows that this could reach double this or 1 million jobs affected if another 4 years are lost pretending that climate change is "a scam" or that it was not serious, doing nothing and reversing direction. On average over 20 years the loss of jobs from hurricanes is about 69,000, excluding 2016 and 2018 it would be about 45,000. This shows that there are effects that are growing from climate change on jobs at an accelerated pace, another economic warning sign for the need for climate change action. ...

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US policy is to end war as soon as nuclear threat is over- DJT on Iran war on March 31 2026. When the US feels Iran 'won't be able to come up with a nuclear weapon, then we'll leave,' says DJT. US is self sufficient and exports oil to Europe. It doesn't need Iranian oil. DJT makes that clear to allies in Europe who have not taken a stand in the war and limited access to their airbases, saying as Starmer did yesterday that Britain did not want to expand the war. Really, the US does not want to expand the war. DJT's MAGA base does not want this war, and Biden's base does not want this war. US does not need Straits of Hormuz- it is Britain, Italy and EU countries, mainly China, Japan, South Korea that need the Straits of Hormuz. Speaking for the US DJT tells these countries in Europe to get the oil themselves in the Straits. He also tells China to get the oil from the Straits- if they need it and are so complacent as to get 90% of their imports from Hormuz after 40 years of disruptions and wars, as China does. DJT said- "If France or some other country wants to get oil or gas, they'll go up through the Hormuz Strait, they'll go right up there, and they'll be able to fend for themselves. What happens with the strait we're not going to have anything to do with, because these countries, China, China will go up and they'll fuel up their beautiful ships... and they'll take care of themselves. There's no reason for us to do it." "The USA won't be there to help you anymore, just like you weren't there for us. Iran has been, essentially, decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your own oil!" ...

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June's employment numbers in the U.S. from the Labor Department show only 80,000 jobs were added. Job creation dropped in the second quarter to about 75,000 a month from the average of 226,000 in the first quarter 2012. Part of the reason for the higher figures in the first quarter was unseasonably warm weather during that period. Manufacturing added fewer jobs in June, down to 11,000. Healthcare added 13,000 jobs. Of 12.7 million people unemployed, the number of people unemployed for more than 6 months is 42% of the total or 5.4 million.

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US unemployment at 4.6% in November 2025.

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Companies added 159,000 jobs in October 2010, the US Labor Department reported. Most of the jobs were in retail and temporary help services and in health services. Retail added 28,000, temporary help services added 34,900 jobs, education and health services added 53,000 jobs. The unemployment rate for the US still remains at 9.6%. And the broad measure of unemployment, including people who are working part-time because no full time work is available, plus people who have given up looking for work, remains high at 17%.

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The Labor Department reported the U.S economy gained 117,000 jobs in July 2011. Companies added 154,000 jobs, and state and local governments reduced jobs by 39,000. The unemployment rate declined from 9.2% to 9.1%, mainly because some people stopped looking for work. The Commerce Department reported that consumer spending declined in June, 2011.