According to a Reuters article published today, the US Labour Department reported Friday that the national unemployment rate rose to 7.2% in December, the highest level since January 1993 and worse than the predicted 7.0%, up from 6.8% in November.
While December Job Losses did not reach the predicted 550,000 level, they still represented 524,000 of the 2.6 million jobs lost in 2008, the largest decline since 1945.
Where were the greatest job losses in December? According to Reuters, the largest number of jobs lost in December were in services-providing businesses, which were down 273,000 jobs, an incredible 52% of the total.
Reuters quotes Richard Yamarone, chief economist at Argus Research in New York as saying "The job situation is ugly and is going to get uglier. There's no reason to expect hiring anytime in the next three to six months. We are not going to see any hiring until the government steps in and acts. Talk doesn't work," said .
It seems that all hopes are pinned on in-coming president's promised stimulus package. There feels like a lot of optimism out there that the Obama administration will rescue the U.S. economy from the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. The wolrd-wide free market holds its holds its collective breath as their inter-dependent economies await an American turn-around.
What does this mean to the average worker? US citizens have voted for an administration they believe will help them the most. But will a US stimulus package help an unemployed Canadian auto worker? Perhaps indirectly and over time, but that will only be true if the Obama administration succeeds in pulling their economy out of what is predicted could be the longest recession in their history.
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