So the Census scam is real!

Census Hiring Bolsters U.S. Payrolls

 

By LUCA DI LEO -- WSJ

JUNE 4, 2010, 2:32 P.M. ET

 

The U.S. economy added jobs in May at the fastest pace in a decade, but the gains were inflated by temporary government hiring for the 2010 census and weren't enough to bring unemployment down much.

The U.S. Labor Department said in its closely-watched jobs report Friday that nonfarm payrolls rose by 431,000 last month, the largest gain since March 2000. That followed an unrevised 290,000 increase in April.

The U.S. economy added 431,000 jobs in May, nearly all from census hiring. The private sector added only 41,000 jobs. The unemployment rate fell to 9.7%. Phil Izzo, Sudeep Reddy, Dennis Berman and Evan Newmark discuss. And Jon Friedman looks at ways to save Newsweek, the venerable news weekly.

Economists polled by Dow Jones Newswires were expecting payrolls to rise by an even higher 515,000.
Taking into account revisions to prior months, the U.S. economy added an average of nearly 200,000 jobs a month in the January-May period, a positive sign for the labor market as it recovers from the worst recession since the 1930s.

However, the May figure was boosted by the hiring of 411,000 temporary workers for the census. Only 41,000 private-sector jobs were added.

In a sobering reminder the labor market will take a long time to heal, the unemployment rate, which is calculated using a separate household survey, fell only moderately, to 9.7% in May from 9.9% the previous month. Economists were expecting it to drop to that level.

Analysts were disappointed by the low level of jobs created in the private sector, the worst figure since January and well below the median projection of 188,000.

"These new data do not present a picture of a healthy private-sector growth and nothing closely resembling the job growth needed to dig us out of our very deep hole," said Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute, an independent think tank.

The jobs report shouldn't change the Federal Reserve's view that short-term interest rates must remain at a record low for at least a few more months to support the recovery. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke on Thursday said he was still concerned about the persistently high jobless rate.

Following the most severe recession that most Americans can remember, there are still around 15 million people who would like a job but can't get one. Even though the economy started to grow again almost a year ago, companies have until recently been reluctant to ramp up hiring as they waited for more evidence of a stronger economy and focused on producing more with fewer workers.