U.S. employers have added 757,000 jobs to their payrolls in the first half of this year. That actually wouldn’t be so bad if there weren’t so many people out of work. The June unemployment rate of 9.2% was well above the 5% it logged in December 2007, when the recession got under way.
What would it take to get the unemployment rate back down to 5%? Much stronger growth in jobs ”” or a whole lot of time. Here’s a back-of-the-envelope calculation….
I sure wish somebody would tell me just where those 757,000 jobs are! They’re not happening here in the San Joaquin Valley! Not even close. Not 7,570, nor even 757!
And now, according to the Los Angeles Times today, another boom has come to Silicon Valley. Surprise, surprise! Now I wonder just how much this boom is going to affect us here in the Central Valley, and Merced County, in particular? We called one of the poorest counties in California, with an unemployment rate of 21%.