Even After Jobless Claims, Jobs Picture Isn’t Pretty: real rate over 14% unemployed

From the Market Beat blog at WSJ.com:

(W)here exactly do we stand on the jobs front? Here’s a scorecard:

-Weekly jobless claims are sitting around 383,000, the four-week average.

-ADP pegs April private-sector job growth at 119,000.

-TrimTabs pegged April jobs growth at 116,000.

-Announced layoffs are rising, as per Challenger, Gray.

-Last month, the BLS reported 120,000 jobs were created in March. The Street expects that tomorrow, the BLS will report 168,000 jobs were created.

-The official unemployment rate is 8.2% — the so-called U-3 — but everybody understands by now that numbers excludes millions who have either dropped out of the labor force, or can’t find full-time work. A broader measure, the U-6, is at 14.5%.

Where’s that leave us? Well, it leaves us where our doctor said it does. People without jobs are still having a hard time finding jobs.

And take two of these and call him in the morning.

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Link: http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/2012/05/03/after-jobless-claims-a-scorecard-and-new-jobs-measuring-tool/