jobs

Over 100 people attended the eight-hour Town Meeting For Jobs Not Wars on Saturday, October 30th from 9AM to 3PM in an auditorium at Philadelphia Community College. On the same day, Jon Stewart had a major rally in Washington D.C. and President Obama made an appearance at Temple University in Philadelphia. Organizers from the Coalition For Jobs Not Wars, the group that sponsored the town meeting, declared it a rousing success and a propitious beginning for the newly created coalition. So far, the coalition is made up of 13 Philadelphia community and activist groups.

With new jobs numbers coming in it is clear things aren't getting better for most in America. While the economy is starting to gain more jobs than lose jobs, with a gain of 231,000 jobs in April, people are going longer without work than any other time in history.

Democracy Now reported recent numbers that show improved profits of major corporations is not translating to the creation of jobs. Revenue across the Standard & Poor 500 (an index of major companies) have increased to a combined total of $1.18 trillion. This is up $518 million from last year, while capital expenditures, the kind of spending that can create jobs is down by 43%. In short, the market is profiting without workers.

The Wall Street Journal ran an article summing up some of the job losses that defined this recession - and that many of these jobs will never return. Unlike recessions past, when workers were temporarily laid off and then brought back on the job, this time around marked high rates of permanent layoffs and the disappearance of whole sectors of work. Real estate and construction took some of the hardest hits, with over 1.6 million construction jobs lost - a fifth of the 7.2 million lost since December 2007.

May 8, 2009 - The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its monthly unemployment figures today.  The recent data show that the national unemployment rate continued to rise in April, reaching 8.9%.  This is the highest unemployment rate since 1983, and is a .4% increase from the unemployment rate of 8.5% in March of this year.