The U.S. Labor Department announced that the unemployment rate for November was 10%. That was an unexpected drop from the 10.2% in October. That is not a great number but is welcomed and hopefully is a sign of better things to come. It was also announced that the economy lost 11,000 jobs in November, the fewest job cuts since the recession began in December 2007. Wall Street was expecting 130,000 lost jobs.
Another bit of good news was that job losses for September and October were 159,000 fewer than reported earlier for those months. That is a big improvement and coupled with the November numbers would indicate the major bleeding in job losses has been reduced significantly. Job creation is expected to still remain weak and that has to be reversed to sustain the good news in the latest report.
It should be noted that most of the $787 billion in stimulus funds have not yet been spent and are still available to use where needed to help in job creation and other areas of the economy. The nation has an active President in Obama who is dedicated to bringing the economy and jobs back on line. There are those who do not like an active President, however, we have seen first hand how Mr. Bush's lack of true engagement in the economy failed to have an active policy and role to deal with the reality of how serious the problem had become. The American people and the country has been living with the tragic aftermath.
When December is over we will have an idea just how much consumers spent this holiday season and perhaps we will look back and be able to say that was the true start of an economic turn around that will be sustained for many years to come.
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