Pace of jobs cuts expected to slow
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Steve Chiotakis: We’ve been seeing a lot of signs of recovery recently. But we keep hearing that ugly term “jobless recovery.” This morning, we’re going to find out how we’re doing on that front. It’s the first Friday of the month — that means in just a few hours we’ll be getting the government’s unemployment report for last month. And Marketplace’s Jeremy Hobson has a preview.
Jeremy Hobson: Economists are predicting the unemployment rate will rise just a bit for the month of July, from 9.5 percent to 9.6 percent. That would be the highest percentage of Americans out of work since 1983, when the U.S. experienced almost a year’s worth of double-digit unemployment.
Still, the report is expected to show that the pace of job cuts continues to slow. Economists think about 330,000 jobs were lost in July. That would be far below the number lost in June.
So when will all the first Fridays of the month start to be a little more uplifting? Well, the Treasury secretary says we may not stop bleeding jobs until the middle of next year. But with 6.5 million people already laid off since the recession began, there’ll be a lot of competition once companies start hiring again.
In New York, I’m Jeremy Hobson for Marketplace.
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