Morici: “Terrible” Jobs Report

Terrible!

Only 39,000 jobs created in November is awful.

After we back out health care and social services, which are largely gov't funded, the private sector is not creating permanent jobs--none, zero, nada.

After health care, social services and temp services are backed out, the private sector lost 24,000 jobs.

Ugh!

So much for the gradual recovery.

Meanwhile Congress and President negotiate extending the tax cuts—which everyone knows will end in a compromise in the range of $500,000 to $1,000,000 for the cutoff or a temporary extension or both, and extending unemployment benefits, again. Rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic.

The economy must add 13 million private sector jobs by the end of 2013 to bring unemployment down to 6 percent. President Obama’s policies are not creating conditions for businesses to hire those 350,000 workers each month, net of layoffs.

Peter Morici is a professor at the Smith School of Business, University of Maryland, and former Chief Economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission.