Unemployment has soared to 10.2%. That is the highest in nearly 2 decades. What is so disappointing is that we are experiencing the steepest rates of job losses in the past few months in the midst of the GDP and the economy roaring back to health.

There are some good news. There are less unemployed college degree holders. That rate has dropped 0.2% to 4.7%. Management and professionals too experienced the largest job growth, from 5.2% – 4.7%.

However, the fact that these numbers are so small means that it does not impact the economy that much. It was ages ago when the unemployment rate was 4.7%, the rate of unemployed college degree holders. That is unnerving.

Now back to the bad news. Blue collared workers, those that work in production jobs and factories, rose to 14.5 %. That is a 0.4% jump and it is very high. Worst of the lot is the jobless rate for workers in construction, maintenance or natural resources industries. It shot up 1.2%, which is huge! It now stands at a whopping 15.5%.

To sum it all up : The sectors that are least affected are becoming better, while the sectors that are most affected are becoming worse. And the worse is getting worse faster than the better is getting better (a weird expression, I know).

Why? Is it because the college degree holders and people in management make up the GDP while the rest of the economy does not? I am not being populist here, I myself am a college degree holder. But if there are 10% of the population that does not have a job, how can it be good for the economy? That is 10% of the population contributing next to nothing on the demand, how can there be jobs which would be needed in supply? Can people out there please explain this to me?

This also goes back to the topic of the stimulus. Stimulus was meant to create or save jobs. Around $800 billion was set aside to create jobs in 2009 and 2010. But with 1/3 of it being tax cuts, it is ridiculous, that is only going to kick in next year. Less than half of the “non tax cut” cost has been spent. That would be up to around $300 billion. And so far that has saved 1 million jobs.

I think that a stimulus was necessary to save jobs, but the manner done was wrong. For one, I think that the tax cuts are a joke. Cutting taxes in the time of recession is okay, but it should not be costing us more than $200 billion. Cutting taxes when income is next to zero is like selling a catamaran at a discount in the ghetto. It really does not work.

Things should be concentrated on jobs. For one, rather than giving money to the states like what was done, they should have taken over the budget of policeman and / or firemen in the states. This would force state to cut non essential jobs like roadwork ones rather than the firemen and policemen that are essential. I think that we should have reworked the roads, rail networks and electrical grids, reeducate our teachers and get better support for our students.

I think that if the next quarter, the economy grows again but jobs are still being lost, I think that a study has to be demanded. We cannot go down that road at all.

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