If New Hampshire only had one person in their workforce, and they had a job, unemployment would be at 0%. Keep that in mind as John Lynch and the democrats short-stroke the September adjusted jobs number around as a sign that they are good for the economy. They are not.
The unemployment number is merely a reflection of how many people are actually in the workforce, versus how many of that number are working. You could manage to create no jobs at all and have unemployment go down simply because the number of people looking kept getting smaller every month.
Well that what’s been happening in the Granite State, so take the news in this mornings paper of a recent decrease in the unemployment percentage with a shaker of salt. John Lynch will want to spin this as John’s economic recovery stage show, but how do you sell that when people are leaving the theater in droves? You don’t tell anyone they are leaving.
So the big news will be that the unemployment percentage went down. But it is not so much that the percentage went down, it’s why did it go down. Down is not necessarily an indicator of economic prosperity or poltical/economic improvement.
According to historical data from the September New Hampshire Economic and Labor Market information Bureau, in July of 2009 the NH work force was 755,820 strong. As of the September 2010 report, the workforce was only 739,500. That means 16,320 people vanished, gave up, or decided there were no Jobs in New Hampshire. That’s 2.2% of the current workforce the governor does not have to explain as unemployed because they are not looking for work here anymore.
We actually had more people working in more positions in February when unemployment was 7.1%. Since then the workforce has declined steadily and the number of unemployed with it. That means the unemployed were not finding jobs, they were leaving New Hampshire or just gave up and even small increases in employed persons leaves us well below the previous year.
Looking at the employment numbers from the same data we had 10,980 fewer people actually working in the state from those employed in July of 2009, with only 5,340 fewer unemployed in the same period. So while it looks like only 5,000 fewer people had jobs by the 9/2010 report release, there were also 11,000 fewer jobs to be had and 16,000 fewer people looking for them.
If losing 11,000 jobs and 16,000 job seekers is what democrats call ‘good for New Hampshire’ then I can’t wait till we get to 0% unemployment. No one will be working here, but they’ll still spin it as good for you, and the state.
