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Posts Tagged ‘Job Creation’

FLASH: 23,000 American Jobs Lost in March 2010 “Unexpectedly”; UPDATE: Geithner Yesterday: America on “Verge” of “Sustained Period of Job Creation”

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010

Unemployment continues to rise in America as 23,000 American private sector jobs were lost in March 2010

Despite oft-repeated claims by many economists in the establishment media that 50,000 private  jobs would be added this month, the American private sector lost 23,000 jobs in March 2010, again throwing cold water on the Obama Administration’s repeated claims that their policies are creating jobs.   Bloomberg has the story:

Companies in the U.S. unexpectedly cut payrolls in March, according to data from a private report based on payrolls.

The 23,000 decline was the smallest in two years and followed a revised 24,000 drop the prior month, data from ADP Employer Services showed today.

Apparently America’s companies, both big business and small business, simply do not believe that the Obama economic recovery is any more than “just words” and accordingly they are not hiring:

Companies are still hesitant to add workers until they see sustained sales gains and are convinced the economic recovery has taken hold. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg News anticipate the government’s report April 2 will show payrolls increased by 184,000, in part due to temporary hiring by the federal government to conduct the 2010 census and because of better weather compared with February.

“The economic recovery has not been long enough or strong enough along the way yet to produce the kind of rapid employment that people are hoping for,” Joel Prakken, chairman of Macroeconomic Advisers LLC in St. Louis, which produces the figures with ADP, said in a conference call with reporters after the report.

The ADP figures were forecast to show a gain of 40,000 jobs, according to the median estimate of 35 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. Projections ranged from a loss of 20,000 to a 100,000 gain.

Economists also predicted job creation in February 2010, and were wrong, but, amazingly, blamed the weather. The Obama Administration picked up on that weather excuse and has run with it for the entirety of March while claiming that March 2010 would see very substantial job creation. Now that ADP, the nation’s largest private payroll processor and premier private jobs data source, has “unexpectedly” shown yet more private job loss, it will be interesting to see what type of spin or excuse the Obama Administration creates to explain away the latest evidence of the failure of their economic policies.

Sadly, Americans can expect the Obama Administration to hail the coming Labor Department March 2010 jobs report as evidence of the success of their job creation policies, despite the fact that any gain there will be the result of the massive short-term (three month) hiring of census workers, not actual job creation:

Stock fell early Wednesday after a payroll company’s report provided a sobering reminder that the job market remains weak.

ADP said employers slashed 23,000 jobs in March. Economists surveyed by Thomson Reuters had forecast the report would show employers added 40,000 jobs during the month.

The ADP report is seen as an early indicator of the Labor Department’s employment report due out Friday. However, there can be wide variations because ADP only accounts for private-sector jobs.

Economists expect the Labor Department’s report to show employers added 190,000 jobs in March. It would be only the second monthly increase in jobs since the recession began in late 2007. The number could be somewhat inflated because the government hired temporary workers to conduct the 2010 census.

UPDATE: Ed at Hotair points to a WSJ story also using the well-worn “unexpectedly” framing for yet another piece of evidence that private sector job creation just is not occurring. Further, just yesterday Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner claimed “sustained job creation” is here as a result of Obama policies, which today’s report of private sector job loss in March 2010 unequivocally disproves:

During an interview yesterday with CNBC, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said, “I think you can say generally that as the economy is getting stronger — and the economy is getting stronger. You know, we’re probably just on the verge now, of what we think to be a sustained period of job creation, finally.”

The Obama administration will keep up its efforts to “reinforce that recovery” and also preserve recent gains in financial stability, Geithner also said.

As it is almost certain the hundreds of thousands of three-month temporary Census worker jobs will result in an overall jobs report that shows job creation in March 2010 on Friday (the DOL release), it is clear from the ADP data today that sustainable, private sector job creation has not been spurred by 14 months of Obama economic policies, notwithstanding Obama Administration commentary from Geithner and others. Even CNBC, well-known Obama Administration cheerleaders, admits this:

ADP said employers slashed 23,000 jobs from payrolls in March, which came as a surprise to economists, who had expected to 50,000 jobs were added last month.

The ADP report is closely watched ahead of the government’s jobs report on Friday. Economists currently expect that report to show 200,000 jobs were added to nonfarm payrolls in March. And, that report could still show job growth, largely due to heavy hiring of government workers to conduct the Census.

The bottom line is that the establishment media will ignore the ADP private sector jobs report from today, and herald Friday’s DOL report as evidence that the Obama Administration jobs policies have succeeded, despite the clear evidence to contrary that only temporary Census workers will artificially push up the jobs numbers. The key question now is whether the American people, who feel the pain of continued private sector job loss every day, will buy what the Administration and establishment media are selling.

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AT&T Announces 1 Billion Dollar Loss from Obamacare in 1Q 2010

Friday, March 26th, 2010

Today, AT&T announced that it would take a 1,000,000,000 loss in 1Q 2010 because of Obamacare while also indicating it will substantially alter its employee benefit plans

Gigantic telecommunications company AT&T announced just now that it will take a $1,000,000,000 loss in the first quarter of 2010 because of changes made to the health care laws by Obamacare. Additionally, AT&T noted that the benefits packages are subject to substantial alternation in the next few weeks. AT&T’s announcement, on the heels of similar announcements by Caterpillar, John Deere, AK Steel and other large American companies, is more evidence of the negative economic effects from Obamacare. Reuters broke the story a half hour ago:

NEW YORK (Reuters) – AT&T Inc (T.N) said on Friday that it would record a $1 billion non-cash charge for the current quarter related to the new U.S. health care reform law signed by President Barack Obama this week.

AT&T’s charge appeared to be the largest in a series of charges announced by U.S. companies this week.

The operator, whose annual revenue is expected to be $124.1 billion this year, said the charge is the result of a provision in the law related to the tax treatment of Medicare subsidies.

As a result of the legislation, the company said it will be evaluating prospective changes to the health care benefits it offers.

AT&T’s announcement, and others that are sure to follow from America’s blue chip companies, appears to disprove the Democratic claims that Obamacare would create hundreds of thousands of jobs “almost immediately” after passage. Indeed, the corporate losses incurred already from Obamacare appear destined to reduce, not enhance, the ability of America’s companies to hire new employees.

Furthermore, AT&T’s statement that “as a result of the legislation, the company said it will be evaluating prospective changes to the health care benefits it offers” also disproves the oft-repeated Obama misrepresentation that “if you like your plan, you can keep your plan” after the passage of Obamacare. The tens of thousands of employees of AT&T are learning the hard way that sometimes Americans cannot trust the rhetorical claims of politicians about the policies they pursue.

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Congratulations President Barack Obama for Pushing Obamacare Thru Congress

Sunday, March 21st, 2010

CentristNet salutes President Barack Obama for Succeeding Where Many Prior Democratic Presidents Have Failed - Passing National Comprehensive Health Care Through Congress

With the confirmation of Stupak’s bloc of voters moving into the YES column for Obamacare, passage of the President’s signature initiative is assured later today and the Senate bill will become the law of the land tomorrow upon the President’s signature.

CentristNet salutes President Obama for the tenacity he has shown in continuing on in his fight to push through the Obamacare package despite setbacks such as the Scott Brown election victory and we hope for the country’s sake that the many questionable claims made by Obama, such as the claimed trillions in deficit savings, claimed coming reductions in insurance premiums and claimed maintenance of the unmatched quality, innovation and job creation of the present American health care system, will come true and the country will be better off from the passage of the bill.

While CentristNet would have preferred an incremental, bipartisan package of health care reforms and have serious doubts about the viability of the many claims made by Obama and the Democrats about their Obamacare package, CentristNet nonetheless salutes President Obama for his achievement and sent our congratulations to President Barack Obama for achieving his goal of comprehensive health care reform.

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Evan Bayh Bluntly States Congress has Created Zero Jobs

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

After a day of attacks from the Left after his retirement annoucement, Evan Bayh slams the Democratic Congress's handling of job creation

Freed up from concerns about the wrath of the Obama Administration or the Democratic Party after his shock retirement yesterday, and perhaps troubled by the harsh personal attacks from the left in the wake of his announcement, Evan Bayh today slammed the Democratic-controlled Congress as creating no jobs to help the economy and workers through the ongoing economic slowdown in America. Bayh was responding to a question about his position, as enunciated at his retirement press conference yesterday, that he could help his constituents more outside of Congress than in. Politico reports on Bayh’s CBS “Early Show” appearance this morning:

Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) is retiring, but he’s not the retiring type, ridiculing congressional job creation efforts — i.e., the stimulus — on “The Early Show.”

“If I could create one job in the private sector by helping to grow a business, that would be one more than Congress has created in the last six months,” Bayh said.

The White House is no doubt smarting this very moment over the cutting nature of Bayh’s attack, as such sentiments have been pouring forth from GOP politicians ever since the January/February 2009 Stimulus debate. When Scott Brown made a similar comment just two weeks ago, the White House went into full spin mode, attacking Brown harshly, as reported by ABC:

Minutes after he was sworn in by Vice President Biden, newly minted Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) says the stimulus “hasn’t created one new job.”

The comments came at Brown’s first press conference as a U.S. Senator when I asked him if he is willing to work with Democrats on a jobs bill. Based on his response, that seems unlikely.

“The last stimulus bill didn’t create one new job and in some states the money that was actually released hasn’t even been used yet,” Brown said.

“It didn’t create one new job?” I asked.

“That’s correct. We lost another 85,000 jobs again, give or take last month,” he responded. “And in Massachusetts, it hasn’t created one new job and throughout the country as well. It may have retained some but it hasn’t created any new jobs. I need to see the bill.”

…..

The Obama Administration says Brown’s got his facts wrong.

“Economists of all political points of view, including those from the non-partisan CBO, estimate that the Recovery Act has created or saved between 1.5 – 2.4 million jobs across America,” said Jay Carney, spokesman for Vice President Joe Biden, the administration’s top Recovery Act booster and watchdog.

“Unemployment is far too high, which is why the President is so focused on jobs. But it is beyond dispute that if it were not for the Recovery Act, as many as 2.4 million more Americans would be unemployed today.”

More Carney: “Anyone can go to Recovery.gov and see that MA state and local government, businesses and community organizations have already reported directly funding over 9,000 jobs in the state last year – and that’s based on a only a portion of the total $8.4 billion in Recovery funds that have already gone to MA.

So far, the White House has had no response to Bayh’s comments whatsoever, showing what a difference the source of a similar comment can make to the White House’s response. The perception of Bayh as now being free to speak his mind, and newly frank views being quite similar to prior GOP attacks on the Democratic-controlled 111th Congress, will surely rile the establishment media and political blogosphere and ensure the Bayh shock retirement story continues to occupy a substantial portion of the overall news cycle for days to come.

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