Jobs Are the Concern This Labor Day

All the economic statistics mean little, of course, if it is you or someone in your family who can't find a job, or has taken a lower paying position with fewer hours just to try to make the mortgage payment or put food on the table and gas in the car.

Initial claims for state unemployment benefits declined to "only" 425,000 last week, down 10,000 from the previous week. Is the glass half full or half empty? It was the sixth straight week that more than 400,000 people filed claims.

The Good News?

There are, however, some positive signs for the economy. Growth in the second quarter was revised upward last week to 3.3% from an anemic 0.9% in the first quarter. The growth surprised many economists, whose predictions averaged a still-healthy 2.7% gain.

Why the boomlet? Credit the stimulus checks from the government that sent $90 billion into the economy and spurred consumer spending, and the weak dollar, which spurred exports in the second quarter.

Still, Americans are complaining about the jobs they do have -- charging that the best jobs are being sent overseas to those who will demand less pay and benefits.

It's true that those working full time are working slightly fewer hours. In July, the average workweek for production and nonsupervisory workers on private nonfarm payrolls fell by 0.1 hour to a seasonally adjusted 33.6 hours. And workers are making slightly more money -- but not enough to keep up with the current rate of inflation. The BLS reports that over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings increased 3.4% and average weekly earnings rose 2.8%. But the consumer price index was 5.6% higher in July 2008 than a year earlier.