First First Friday Of The Year

If you bet on 8.5% being the first First Friday unemployment number of the new year, you’re a winner — December’s number is down from November’s revised number of 8.7%.   But as good as that news is for you, according to an article in today’s New York Times:  “… there is a deep hole to climb out of. There are still more than 13 million jobless Americans, 5.5 million of whom have been unemployed for half a year or more. And even those finding work are often taking salary cuts, with job creation concentrated in low-wage sectors.”

To be fair, the overall tone of the article was positive — I, of course, picked up on the bad news, like this from today’s Economix blog post on the Time’s website “Economists Take Solace (but Only a Little) in Jobs Report” by John Cushman:

“Things are looking a bit better,” as Morgan Stanley’s David Greenlaw and Ted Wieseman summed it up, “but, we wouldn’t get too carried away just yet.”

and

Some economists noted that a seasonal bump each December in jobs held by couriers was typically followed by layoffs in January, once all the holiday gifts were delivered. 

I would add to the second point the many seasonal workers hired by department stores once the holiday rush and return frenzy is over.  Which is right … about … now.

I really don’t want to be the Grinch that stole the New Year but this stuff is, as you can imagine, really important to me.  Somewhere in the back of my head the fact that I’ve been out of work for more than a year is always banging around and not so much in my frontal lobe.  But at the beginning of each month is when I really take a close look at the tea leaves and try to figure out where I am in the big picture.

Some of today’s news was good — and some of it wasn’t.  I guess it won’t be all good for me until I have that elusive job that I continue to seek.  I continue to hope it’s out there and not just a Heffalump in a dark hole in the woods.