January Jobs Improving?
January's official unemployment numbers definatly show America's Jobless Rate is dropping.
But it also shows not enough new jobs are being created to get even more people back to work.
And a lot of the long-time unemployed may be just giving up.
But not Miami Jobseek Stephanie Izquierdo.
The Hialeah Hhigh Grad is looking for a full time admistrative job to replace her part-time work at a local retailer.
Stephanie says "I've been looking for full time work for about 6 months now. I used to go for interveiwes and they weren't very interested. But now I get more call-backs and I think now it's a lot better."
While the latest job numbers show some improvment, they also show new job creation Nationwide remains stalled.The national unemployment rate last month dropped to 9 percent. That's down about 0.4 percent from December.
That comes out to about 600-thousand fewer people collecting benefits than the end of last year.
But there were only 36-thousand new jobs added overall Nationwide.
And that's far less than expected and not enough to really put more people back to work according to come National Labor Analysts.
Locally, some job counselors say they are now seeing more job orders from South Florida empolyers than last year.
Odayls Girado of Doral's RightHire Staffing says " I think it's going to improve, we're getting more job orders than last year at this time. We're not out of the woods just yet, but maybe we're a little closer".
The overal national Unemployment rate has dropped 8-tenths of a percent since Novembert. And that's one of the best improvements in more than five-decades.
But some analysts say that may be in part because so many long-timed jobless workers have given up looking for work. When that happens, they're no longer counted on the official unemployment rolls.
Still...nearly 14-million Americans remain out of work. And that's twice the number from before the start of the recession.
There are some bright spots in the employment picture.
Manufacturing companies added 49-thousand jobs nationwide last month. And that's the most in about 13 years.
Retailers added 28-thousand positions and some analysts predict even more jobs are likely to follow as consumers start spending again.
And this Winter Tourism season is expected to remain strong, along with booming Foreign Trade out of South Florida's Ports.
So our Job picture may be looking a little better than the first quarter of 2010.
But for anyone looking for work, there may still not be enough new "Help Wanted" signs to start dramaticially dropping South Floridas' Double-Digit Unemployment anytime soon.
