The Labor Department released its monthly jobs report today.  Unlike in the previous months of January, February and March showing decreases of 80,000 jobs on average, the U.S. economy only shed 20,000 jobs in April.  This brought the unemployment rate to 5.0%, down 0.1% from the Month of March. 

Looking back a year, the number of unemployed persons in April 2007 was 800,000 less, and the rate of unemployment was 4.5% compared to 5.0%in 2008.  In another troubling development in just one month, the number of persons working part time for economic reasons increased by 306,000 to 5.2 million in April.  This level is 849,000 higher than in April 2007. These individuals indicated that they were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job. 

John McCain issued a following statement on the jobs report: “Today’s job numbers are another clear indication of the economic challenges facing our country. With Americans hurting, we must act to strengthen our economy for families and small businesses. We must help Americans now through gas tax relief, which provides immediate relief from rising energy prices. We must also help those facing home foreclosure by enacting a HOME plan. At the same time, we need to act to lower taxes, streamline regulation, lower health care costs, ensure energy independence and open foreign markets. To help those who have lost jobs, we must focus on promoting effective worker re-training programs.”  

Senator McCain, once again, is talking past the problem. The point is there aren’t enough full-time jobs.  And we are rapidly losing good-paying manufacturing jobs in this country.  The April loss is another 46,000 unemployed in the manufacturing sector.  In addition to 306,000 more people forced to work part time, there is an additional 1.4 million who are “marginally attached” to the labor force in April.  These people were not counted as unemployed only because they have not looked for a job in the 4 weeks prior to the survey.  The Labor Department indicates that among those “marginally attached” were 412,000 so-called “discouraged workers” in April.  Discouraged workers were not looking for work specifically because they believed there are no jobs available for them.

Giving people an 18-cent break on a gallon of gas, or lowering their taxes is not going to give someone hope that they once again will be counted as a productive member of society and not as someone who is “marginal” or “discouraged.”  Neither is retraining them for a job that may be gone by the end of the training.  The answer to employing more people is creating more jobs in the U.S., instead of creating them for workers overseas.  The single greatest factor contributing to manufacturing jobs’ losses is our unbalanced trade with China.  Our Presidential candidates, Republican or Democrat need to get real.

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