The Stock Market and the Job Market
Jan 13, 2010
Posted by Jody Eisenman | Filed under Uncategorized
As I have discussed last year (http://www.jodyeisenman.com/2009/10/a-tale-of-two-streets/), while the stock market continues to rally (the DJIA and the S and P 500 are up again thus far this year), the job market continues to suffer. Last weeks’ job report showed that we lost an additional 85,000 jobs in December. Although President Obama continues to claim that his administrations’ stimulus package is working, its hard to tell when at least one out of every ten workers is still without a job. According to Mark Zandy at Moodys, the underemployment rate, which includes part time workers who would really like full time work, and those who have given up all hope of finding a job, now stands at over 17%. The average investor may be happy when he looks at the current state of his portfolio, bur for the rest of America, the world is a very different place. Anecdotally, I have never seen so many professionals and mid-level executives out of work. Due to the fact that so many companies have filed bankruptcy last year, hundreds of thousands of jobs simply have disappeared. There aren’t enough new jobs out there to fill the demand left in this void. Hopefully, the national employment situation will improve this year.
