And the job losses will continue
TEXT OF INTERVIEW
Steve Chiotakis: All right, let’s explore those jobless numbers. Marketplace’s Jeremy Hobson joins us from New York. Jeremy, unemployment and the Wall Street reaction, and of course the Labor Department even revised the January numbers, too.
Jeremy Hobson: Yeah. The Labor Department had said that the economy lost 665,000 jobs in January. That’s now been revised down to 741,000. Now that is the worst monthly job loss since the 1940’s. A lot of people are looking at that and saying maybe that’s the bottom of the job losses, because the last two months, if these numbers stand up, are not quite as bad. I just spoke with Dana Saporta, however, who’s an economist with Dresdner Kleinwort here in New York, and she says the news of the numbers do have an effect on consumer confidence:
Dana Saporta: People will retrench if they feel that their jobs are insecure. Even if they still have a job and don’t expect to lose a job, the natural reaction is to cut back on spending and increase savings.
And not to be a downer, Steve, but Dana Saporta says she expects these huge numbers to continue in the near term, because a lot of layoff announcements haven’t yet taken effect.
Chiotakis: All right. Marketplace’s Jeremy Hobson joining us from New York. Jeremy, thanks.
Hobson: Sure.
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