Jobs Numbers Better Than Expected

It looks like the economy is starting to turn around. We still aren't out of the woods yet but at least we are seeing postive signs. It is also key because good economic news helps to justify President Obama's stimulus bill and takes away some of the criticism that is muddying the waters in the fight for health care reform.

From the NYTimes:

The American economy lost 247,000 jobs in July, and in a reversal, the unemployment rate fell slightly, to 9.4 percent, the government reported Friday.

Although businesses are expected to keep cutting jobs through the rest of the year, the Labor Department’s latest figures offered some faint signs that the sinking job market was approaching bottom.

The length of the workweek increased, albeit slightly, for the first time since August, a sign that businesses were not scaling back hours to cut their payroll costs. The government said fewer jobs were lost this spring than it had initially estimated, revising June’s lob losses to 443,000 from 467,000.

snip

Friday’s employment picture was better- than forecasters had been expecting. Economists had estimated that 325,000 jobs were lost in July and that the unemployment rate would rise to 9.6 percent.

The report offers a measure of relief to the Obama administration, which weathered intense criticism when the pace of job losses accelerated in June after leveling off a month earlier. Conservative critics have cited the monthly jobs report, which has rapidly become a political football, as evidence that the $787 billion stimulus was not working, while liberals have previously maintained that it showed that the economy needed another jolt of stimulus.

But the president and his economic advisers have said the stimulus put the brakes on the economy’s swift decline, and was instrumental in reducing the rate of economic contraction to 1 percent during the second quarter. The White House has said there is no immediate need for an additional package, and has urged Americans to be patient as stimulus spending percolates through the economy. But for unemployed Americans scouring want-ads and tacking their résumés up onto online job boards, patience — and money — are wearing thin.