Double-Dip, Anyone?
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Mark Marich
The new employment statistics are out from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and it doesn't look any better than the previous months. Looking at the bottom line, unemployment remained "essentially unchanged" for the month of May at 9.1 percent (13.9 million people). During that period, the economy added 54,000 jobs--down considerably from the average of 220,000 jobs per month over the past several months.
If you are a "glass half full" type, you can take solace in the fact that the numbers are still on the positive side. However, a growing number of experts - like Growthology's Tim Kane, a senior fellow at the Kauffman Foundation - are sounding the alarm bell and talking about the reality of a double-dip recession. One simple, sobering statistic from Kane: "A recovery in the job growth number needs to average 400,000 a month to achieve the simplest recovery in 2.5 years." I guess 54,000 - or even 220,000 - is going to take a while longer.
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