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"Watch your back," warned Scott on Thursday, announcing his plans to capture the top spot in Chief Executive Magazine's ranking for job growth and business development. Florida placed third this year. "Florida is eliminating job killing regulation, reducing the size and cost of government, and making sure we have the best educated workforce," said Scott, who took office in January, pledging to revive the state's job market. "We have no personal income tax and are phasing out the business tax, starting with eliminating it entirely for half the business that paid it."
Perry, who often touts Texas' long record in job creation, was not fazed. "He would respectfully say, 'Bring it on'," said Katherine Cesinger, a spokeswoman. "I am proud of our state's accomplishments and remain committed to upholding principles like low taxes, restrained spending, reasonable regulations and a fair legal system, which have made Texas the best state in the nation to live, work, raise a family and start a business," Perry said when the rankings came out earlier this month.
The survey asks more than 500 CEOs to rank states based on a criteria including taxation, regulation, workforce quality and living environment. "[Texas] gets strong marks in all areas important for business creation, and has the second-lowest taxes in the nation," the magazine said. "The state has created more jobs than any other -- about 250,000 last year."
Source
The economy gained a mere 54,000 jobs in the month, a significant slowdown from 232,000 jobs added to payrolls in April, the government reported Friday. The report was a major disappointment to economists who were expecting a gain of 170,000 jobs, according to a CNNMoney survey. Most believe the economy needs to add about 150,000 jobs a month just to keep pace with population growth. The unemployment rate worsened to 9.1% from 9% in April. Economists had predicted the rate would improve to 8.9%.
"It is now pretty clear that the economy ran into a brick wall last month," said Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist for Capital Economics, in a research note. "The extent of this slowdown is becoming a big concern." While investors and economists, were already bracing for a weak report, the number shook markets and rattled forecasters. U.S. stocks plunged on the news Friday, and many economists slashed growth projections. They said the combination of weak hiring and other recent disappointments in the health of consumer spending, home values and manufacturing suggest serious problems in the economy that will not be easy to overcome.
"Is this transitory? The answer is no," said Lakshman Achuthan, managing director of Economic Cycle Research Institute. He said this report could raise further doubts among employers about the strength of the recovery, which could cause them to pull back even more on hiring plans. The report included other signs of growing pains for the unemployed. The number of jobless who have been out of work for more than six months jumped by 361,000, bringing the average number of weeks the unemployed job seekers have been out of work to just under 40 weeks, a record high.
Overall, the number of unemployed rose by 167,000 to 13.9 million, the highest so far this year. But some optimists cautioned not to read too much into one report that was admittedly a major disappointment. "There are always ebbs and flows to the jobs market," said Scot Melland, CEO of Dice Holdings, a provider of career Web sites. "One month does not a trend make. This comes on the back of three strong months of jobs growth."
Employers getting jittery
The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) was down 37 points, or 0.3%; the S&P 500 (SPX) lost 4 points, or 0.3%; and the Nasdaq Composite (COMP) shed 16 points, or 0.7%. The Dow had been down more than 130 points earlier in the day. The selling remained broad however, with 23 out of 30 Dow components lower. Financial stocks JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America were the Dow's top performers, up more than 1% while economy-sensitive companies such as Caterpillar, Alcoa and United Technologies were among the biggest drags.
Investors also flocked to the safety of U.S. Treasuries, sending the yield on the 10-year note back under 3% for the third day in a row. "I'm not giving up hope, but clearly the strength of the economic recovery is in question," said Rob Lutts, chief investment officer with Cabot Money Management. Over the past few months, investors have been faced with increasing signs that the economic recovery is stalling. Stocks had their worst monthly performance in May since August 2010. The government's May jobs report out on Friday only added to those worries.
Employers added a mere 54,000 jobs last month, down from a downwardly revised 232,000 in the previous month. The unemployment rate nudged up to 9.1%. While the jobs report figures were dismal, bullish traders said that the bad numbers were largely baked into the market already following Wednesday disappointing ADP private payrolls report. "The jobs number is certainly important, but people were expecting a weaker number," said Anthony Conroy, head trader at BNY ConvergEx. U.S. stocks closed mostly lower Thursday, with the Dow and S&P falling for a second day in a row.
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Hiring slows, unemployment grows - get ready for the double-dip recession...
May jobs report: Hiring slows, unemployment rises
June 3, 2011 -- In yet another alarm bell of a weakening U.S. economy, the job market took a disappointing turn in May.
The economy gained a mere 54,000 jobs in the month, a significant slowdown from 232,000 jobs added to payrolls in April, the government reported Friday. The report was a major disappointment to economists who were expecting a gain of 170,000 jobs, according to a CNNMoney survey. Most believe the economy needs to add about 150,000 jobs a month just to keep pace with population growth. The unemployment rate worsened to 9.1% from 9% in April. Economists had predicted the rate would improve to 8.9%.
"It is now pretty clear that the economy ran into a brick wall last month," said Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist for Capital Economics, in a research note. "The extent of this slowdown is becoming a big concern." While investors and economists, were already bracing for a weak report, the number shook markets and rattled forecasters. U.S. stocks plunged on the news Friday, and many economists slashed growth projections. They said the combination of weak hiring and other recent disappointments in the health of consumer spending, home values and manufacturing suggest serious problems in the economy that will not be easy to overcome.
"Is this transitory? The answer is no," said Lakshman Achuthan, managing director of Economic Cycle Research Institute. He said this report could raise further doubts among employers about the strength of the recovery, which could cause them to pull back even more on hiring plans. The report included other signs of growing pains for the unemployed. The number of jobless who have been out of work for more than six months jumped by 361,000, bringing the average number of weeks the unemployed job seekers have been out of work to just under 40 weeks, a record high.
Overall, the number of unemployed rose by 167,000 to 13.9 million, the highest so far this year. But some optimists cautioned not to read too much into one report that was admittedly a major disappointment. "There are always ebbs and flows to the jobs market," said Scot Melland, CEO of Dice Holdings, a provider of career Web sites. "One month does not a trend make. This comes on the back of three strong months of jobs growth."
Employers getting jittery
See also:
Stocks hit by 'horrible' job report
June 3, 2011: U.S. stocks were off Friday session lows in early-afternoon trading, as traders continued to digest a jobs report that showed signs that the economy is slowing down.
The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) was down 37 points, or 0.3%; the S&P 500 (SPX) lost 4 points, or 0.3%; and the Nasdaq Composite (COMP) shed 16 points, or 0.7%. The Dow had been down more than 130 points earlier in the day. The selling remained broad however, with 23 out of 30 Dow components lower. Financial stocks JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America were the Dow's top performers, up more than 1% while economy-sensitive companies such as Caterpillar, Alcoa and United Technologies were among the biggest drags.
Investors also flocked to the safety of U.S. Treasuries, sending the yield on the 10-year note back under 3% for the third day in a row. "I'm not giving up hope, but clearly the strength of the economic recovery is in question," said Rob Lutts, chief investment officer with Cabot Money Management. Over the past few months, investors have been faced with increasing signs that the economic recovery is stalling. Stocks had their worst monthly performance in May since August 2010. The government's May jobs report out on Friday only added to those worries.
Employers added a mere 54,000 jobs last month, down from a downwardly revised 232,000 in the previous month. The unemployment rate nudged up to 9.1%. While the jobs report figures were dismal, bullish traders said that the bad numbers were largely baked into the market already following Wednesday disappointing ADP private payrolls report. "The jobs number is certainly important, but people were expecting a weaker number," said Anthony Conroy, head trader at BNY ConvergEx. U.S. stocks closed mostly lower Thursday, with the Dow and S&P falling for a second day in a row.
MORE
The Labor Department report offered startling evidence that the U.S. economy is slowing, hampered by high gas prices and natural disasters in Japan that have hurt U.S. manufacturers. The pace of hiring has weakened dramatically from the previous three months, when the economy added an average of 220,000 new jobs. Private companies hired only 83,000 new workers in May -- the fewest in nearly a year. Stock futures plunged after the report was released.
Local governments cut 28,000 jobs last month, the most since November. Nearly 18,000 of those jobs were in education. Cities and counties have cut jobs for 22 straight months and have shed 446,000 positions since September 2008. The anemic pace of job creation presents a huge challenge to President Barack Obama's reelection prospects next year. And it followed a string of disappointing economic data in the past month that suggest the economy is hitting a soft patch after a strong start.
The manufacturing sector, a key driver of the economic recovery, grew at its slowest pace in 20 months in May. Home prices are still falling and reached their lowest level since 2002 in March. Higher gas prices have left less money for consumers to spend on other purchases. And average wages aren't even keeping up with inflation. As a result, consumer spending, which fuels about 70 percent of the economy, is growing sluggishly.
More people entered the work force in May. But most of the new entrants couldn't find work. That pushed the unemployment rate up from 9.0 percent in April. The number of unemployed rose to 13.9 million. And the government revised the previous months' job totals to show 39,000 fewer jobs were created in March and April than first thought. The weakness in hiring was widespread. Manufacturers cut 5,000 jobs, the first job loss in that sector in seven months. That included a drop of 3,400 jobs in the auto sector.
MORE
Kinda hard to create jobs here when they're bein' outsourced to Asia and Mexico...
Wrong Direction: Unemployment Rate Up, Job Creation Down
Friday, June 03, 2011 WASHINGTON (AP) - Employers hired only 54,000 new workers in May, the fewest in eight months, and the unemployment rate rose to 9.1 percent.
The Labor Department report offered startling evidence that the U.S. economy is slowing, hampered by high gas prices and natural disasters in Japan that have hurt U.S. manufacturers. The pace of hiring has weakened dramatically from the previous three months, when the economy added an average of 220,000 new jobs. Private companies hired only 83,000 new workers in May -- the fewest in nearly a year. Stock futures plunged after the report was released.
Local governments cut 28,000 jobs last month, the most since November. Nearly 18,000 of those jobs were in education. Cities and counties have cut jobs for 22 straight months and have shed 446,000 positions since September 2008. The anemic pace of job creation presents a huge challenge to President Barack Obama's reelection prospects next year. And it followed a string of disappointing economic data in the past month that suggest the economy is hitting a soft patch after a strong start.
The manufacturing sector, a key driver of the economic recovery, grew at its slowest pace in 20 months in May. Home prices are still falling and reached their lowest level since 2002 in March. Higher gas prices have left less money for consumers to spend on other purchases. And average wages aren't even keeping up with inflation. As a result, consumer spending, which fuels about 70 percent of the economy, is growing sluggishly.
More people entered the work force in May. But most of the new entrants couldn't find work. That pushed the unemployment rate up from 9.0 percent in April. The number of unemployed rose to 13.9 million. And the government revised the previous months' job totals to show 39,000 fewer jobs were created in March and April than first thought. The weakness in hiring was widespread. Manufacturers cut 5,000 jobs, the first job loss in that sector in seven months. That included a drop of 3,400 jobs in the auto sector.
MORE
In February 2009, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that 141.7 million people were employed. By the end of May 2011 the last month for which data are available that number had fallen to 139.8 million, a difference of 1.9 million. While the number of people with jobs has increased slightly from its low point during the recession 137.9 million in December 2009 those 1.9 million jobs have been lost despite $800 billion in stimulus spending. This does not mean that the economy is not creating jobs, but rather that it is not creating jobs fast enough to keep up with a combination of layoffs and people entering the job market for the first time.
In a Washington Post op-ed, former White House chief economist Larry Summers noted that the percentage of the population that has a job has not improved, even though the economy is technically in recovery. From the first quarter of 2006 to the first quarter of 2011, the U.S. economys growth rate averaged less than 1 percent a year, Summers wrote. The fraction of the population working remains almost exactly at its recession trough, and recent reports suggest that growth is slowing. The fraction of the population with a job has in fact fallen in the 28 months since Congress passed the stimulus down from 60.3 percent in February 2009 to 58.4 percent in May 2011.
The economy cannot create jobs fast enough to keep pace with layoffs and recent high school and college graduates seeking employment. If the trend continues, as Summers notes may happen, the economy will suffer further in the future as college graduates delay entry into the labor force, reducing their lifetime productivity. Beyond the lack of jobs and incomes, an economy producing below its potential for a prolonged interval sacrifices its future, argued Summers. Huge numbers of new college graduates are moving back in with their parents this month because they have no job or means of support.
As both Summers and the BLS data make clear, the economy is not creating new jobs fast enough to make up for layoffs and new graduates, calling into question Obamas oft-repeated claim that the economy is recovering and creating jobs. In fact, by citing figures from the first quarter of 2006, Summers is understating the economys poor performance. According to BLS data, the number of people with jobs peaked at 146.6 million in November 2007, meaning that over the entire recession which officially began in December 2007 the number of people employed has fallen by 6.8 million.
1.9 Million Fewer Americans Have Jobs Today Than When Obama Signed Stimulus | CNSnews.com
