http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/07/08/unemployment-rose-nationwide-to-9-2-percent-as-hiring-stalls/
It will be two more weeks before the Tri-State Area finds out its unemployment rates for the month of June, but if the national unemployment numbers released Friday are any indication of what’s to come, it doesn’t look good.
Hiring nationwide slowed to a near-standstill last month. Employers added the fewest jobs in nine months and the unemployment rate rose to 9.2 percent.
The economy generated only 18,000 jobs last month and needs to add 125,000 jobs per month just to keep pace with population growth. What’s worse, more people — 250,000 last month alone — have just stopped looking for work, reports CBS 2′s Marcia Kramer.
“We’ve added more than 2 million new private sector jobs over the past 16 months, but the recession cost us more than 8 million. And that means we still have a big hole to fill,” President Barack Obama said on Friday.
EXTRA: Click Here To Read The Full Report
It’s a double whammy for the economy. The new job report shows job creation has slowed to a trickle, and new evidence has emerged that Americans don’t have the skills to take the jobs that do exist.
“We’re not doing a good enough job preparing young people for the jobs that exist in today’s economy,” said Harvard University’s William Symonds.
The hard-to-fill jobs include skilled trades like plumbers and carpenters, sales reps and drivers, people who need a technical degree — not a liberal arts education.
“We’ve taken a very academic sort of one-size-fits all to education with the goal, frankly, that most students are going to a four-year college,” Symonds said.
The latest report offered stark evidence that the recovery will be painfully slow. It also raised doubts that the economy will rebound in the second half of the year after hitting a spring slump. The report touched off partisan wrangling in Washington. Staten Island Congressman Michael Grimm blamed President Obama and Democratic policies.
“The problem in this country is the government, Washington, is broken. The bureaucracy here is just ridiculously large,” Grimm said
The bad news on unemployment is on the minds of many New Yorkers.
Pat Larson said her friend, who worked at a high executive level, has been out of work for almost two years and the new numbers have her fearing about her job security.
“I’m nervous because I work in health care and you know what has happened to health care in the last couple of years,” Larson said. “If I lose my job, I lose my health insurance. I’m in big trouble.”
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