Bad news for US economy as unemployment rate holds
Posted by Stephen Cline on March 7th, 2010There seems to be a ding dong battle on, in the US economy and unemployment rate stakes. People are closely watching all the relevant figures for any signs of improvement. People are desperate that the US economy come out of the woods, and to have a situation where the unemployment rate is holding up at 9.7% is not a pretty picture. Payrolls dropped by as many as 36,000 in February, coming after a 26,000 fall in the month of January. While the construction sector laid off people, the manufacturing sector did add some people to the payrolls.
The total loss of jobs since December 2007 has been around 8.4 million, and the unemployment rate which had fallen to 9.5% has inched up to 9.7% again. Qualitatively, skilled people had greater chances of getting employed and to return to the workforce as compared to those with little or no skills. The recovery in the job market has been very uneven, and people who want to get back to work will need to polish their skills and buck up. There is a trend in the IT sector to add people here, with companies like Accenture planning to add as many as 50,000 people in the short to medium term.
Tags: unemployment rate, US economy