Unemployment revised up to 8.5%

And they revised January's numbers up to 741k. And hours worked is the lowest since the 60s. and that damned b/d model once again added over 100k jobs. but bloomberg says it's good news because it's in line with expectations. how sad.

Yeah, the jobs numbers are kind of gruesome. You know it's bad when then say, 650,000+ jobs lost is good news because we were expecting it to be worse....yikes. These numbers lag for quite some time, so we will continue to shed jobs for at least the rest of 2009. A good sign would be for the job losses in April, May and June to be MUCH lower than what they were for January, February and March. If they go down then we are getting closer to a recovery, but if the stay 500k+ we will have more pain for a longer time period.

I got my absentee ballot application. AR, Again, Thnk U.

waverly, i think we'll see an ugly bump upward shortly, for a couple of months, as states come to terms with their new budgets. alot of people in the public sector are starting to get layoff notices. the amount that i am seeing in education is scary.

FWIW, litigation is picking up.

mutombonyc, you're more than welcome. does me good to do something productive instead of dwelling on the negative. the hubby has a good contact in the pro bono legal world and i may start volunteering there (ironically, it's tough to get volunteer work in the legal profession these days as they are going to be overwhelmed with graduating law students that the law firms would like to pawn off on them. plus, you get to work with graduating law students who have a shitty attitude under the best of circumstances, i can't even imagine how unpleasant many of them will be now).

aboutready - those are interesting points. I guess I was counting on some other areas dropping more than these would pick up. I am trying to be a glass-half-full guy as much as possible, since this really is a tough time for many, many people. It does have to end at some point and with the overwhelming negative feelings towards the jobs/economy right now, any sort of real tick in the right direction will help. We clearly do need to see a few months of movement in the right direction before we can say it is actually improving.

Would the state employees take more time to fire, due to hops the state may have to jump through? Also, when you say eductaion, do you mean school teachers or grants people at Harvard?

hoops, not sops...sorry.

Jesus, can't type tooodaae...

Small numbers seem to be happening in higher education. School districts are announcing now because they need to do so for the upcoming school year. There is always the chance that they won't have to actually make all the cuts, but they have to announce based on their worst-case scenarios. I wouldn't be spending much if I were in that situation.

The other surprising area I'm seeing alot of cuts is hospitals. Many people are postponing health care for financial reasons.

To be honest, I think that the next stimulus package will largely directed at the states, with unemployment/medical/food stamps/education leading the way. Selling that to Congress when California, Florida, Nevada, etc. were hurting wouldn't work. Sadly, we'll have to see the pain spread to Kansas before Congress will allow the printing presses to start working for the people rather than the banks.

It's not all that bleak. We just finished our tax return (both of us are bankers). Our income was still close to $2mm for 08. This compares to $2.3mm in 2007. It's not all gloom and doom out there, there are still people in the City making money.

tribeca, 32 million people are receiving food stamps. the press is saying that's 10% of our populations, but I'm fairly certain the number really means 32 million households. That's 25% or so of America.

waverly, i'm having some real difficulties typing. i think we should all just give each other a pass on such things.

That's a crazy statistic. Are you sure about that? And before you try to make me feel bad: I pay my fair share of taxes to support people that are less fortunate than me.

aboutready, tribeca's post was http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/94/Saabtrollsticker.png

so don't bother explaining the facts on the ground

Why am I a troll, alanhard? Because I still make money?

well, the u6 is at around 15-16%, and that wouldn't take into account huge portions of our population (namely children, spouses who have been out of the market, seniors), so yes i think it is crazy, and i think it's probably true.

tribeca - I am happy for you and your family, but you do get that your post was a bit "disconnected" right? If not, take a look again.

ar - I have friends that work in Universities and the administrative people are getting whacked pretty badly....or I should say that most of them are getting early retirement packages so they don't have to be laid off.

I always find it interesting that the southern and midwestern states complain about big government spending, but they are at the head of the line to take NY's tax dollars to fund their states and education systems.

alanhart, i was quite proud of myself. my blood pressure didn't rise more than a couple of points when i read the post.

waverly, the early retirement packages don't make the press as often. i have heard of some of the more marginal colleges increasing class size and load and firing faculty. also some state systems (what in the hell will happen to the Cal and SUNY systems?), but nothing from the faculty of the exalted yet.

tribeca: $2 million is money? Try applying yourself and maybe you can do better.

Buy now or miss the recover!

Law firms provide interesting info, because their hiring process reveals what they currently think they'll need for the next couple of years.

I found the following to be a bit disturbing, even though I have been saying that those who are graduating will do nothing but add to the unemployment figures. BTW, waverly, once summer is upon us, the U6 will have far more credibility than the U3, as the new graduates will only show up on the U6. Obviously new graduates, whether from high school or college, are much less likely to wind up homeless, etc., they will nonetheless be unemployed.

www.abovethelaw.com/2009/04/shearman_sterling_pushes_back.php

Monster just said their activity for job postings is DISMAL.