Home Based Businesses

Should the Baby Boomer Generation Join an Internet Home Business Opportunity? Misleading Government Unemployment Numbers for April, 2010

The U.S. government unemployment numbers for April, 2010 were recently released.  They showed that the economy added a net 290,000 jobs.  This was a major topic on all the weekend television shows.

I live in Tampa, FL but I could still hear the standing ovation that the President Obama administration received all the way up in Washington, DC.  President Obama proudly declared that this jobs growth was “very encouraging news.”

According to these numbers, payrolls in private industry added 231,000 jobs.  This is the highest number since March, 2006.

Economists claim that these figures show that employers are feeling more confident in the economy.  They stated that companies will continue to add to their employment numbers in subsequent months.  The main stream media asserted that these numbers clearly show that the economy has turned the corner.

But these government unemployment numbers are misleading.

1. For one thing, the unemployment rate rose from 9.7% in March to 9.9% in April.  This is because 805,000 people without jobs started looking for jobs in April.

I find this a little strange.  It is saying that 805,000 unemployed people resumed looking for a job resulting in a boost to the unemployment rate.

This shows that we are focusing on the wrong unemployment rate.  The most meaningful rate is the U-6 unemployment rate that is published, but not publicized, by the federal government.  It includes those who have given up looking for work plus people working part time who want to work full time.  This rate rose from 16.9% in March to 17.1% in April.

2. Those people out of work for more than 6 months rose to 6.7 million – an all-time high.  This number represents 45.9% of all unemployed workers.  This percentage is also a record high.

3. Over the last 8 weeks, initial jobless claims have averaged 450,000 per week.  That means that 1,800,000 people were laid off over the last 4 weeks.  That would mean that over 2,000,000 jobs were added to the economy in April.  This is highly unlikely.

4. Looking more closely at the government unemployment numbers, 66,000 temporary census workers were added in April. These workers will be let go later in the year.

26,000 non-census temporary workers were added in April.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), an additional 188,000 workers were added from the CES Birth/Death adjustment.  This adjustment does not refer to people but to businesses.  The BLS guesses how many companies were opened and closed during the month.  It then guesses how many jobs were generated or lost due to the opening and closing of these companies.

If you add 66,000 new temporary census workers, 26,000 temporary non-census workers, and the 188,000 Birth/Death adjustment, this totals 280,000 new workers.

The bottom line is that of the 290,000 net jobs added in April, 280,000 were either temporary or the result of government guesswork.

Do these government unemployment numbers indicate that the economy has turned the corner?  Is this the beginning of a robust recovery?  I don’t think so.

Should unemployed members of the baby boomer generation look to join a internet home business opportunity?

I think so.  Economists say that the economy’s recovery will be painfully slow.  They say that it will take several years of job growth averaging 500,000 net job gains per months to bring us back to an unemployment rate similar to what we had 2 years ago.

Since you are not working, you must bring in money quickly.  So it is important to join a business that provides that type of compensation.

If a home business is easy, you will have the time to search for a job.  If your success in a business depends entirely on you and your marketing ability, this is not an easy business and probably not right for you under the circumstances.

If you are not working, your budget is probably tight.  Find a business that requires only a reasonable initial investment and no or minimal monthly costs.

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