It would take a lot of optimism to put a positive spin on the jobs report for September, released on Friday by the Labor Department.
Employers added 103,000 jobs last month, allaying fears, for now, of a double-dip recession. But even if the economy avoids another contraction, the numbers confirm that the job market is in a deep rut that is, for all purposes, indistinguishable from recession. There are still 14 million people officially unemployed, and nearly 12 million more who have given up actively looking for work or who are working part time but need full-time jobs.
Earlier this week, President Obama and the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke, delivered bleak economic assessments, which demand a government response. The economy, already at a crawl, could well slow down further in response to economic setbacks in Europe and China or to homegrown problems like political gridlock that delay spending on job-creation efforts.
The economy is not producing enough jobs, and many of the ones created are lousy. Much of last month’s job growth came as 45,000 striking Verizon employees returned to work. Without that one-time boost, the economy added only 58,000 new positions in September, roughly in line with the slow pace of job creation over the past several months.
That is not nearly enough to lower the unemployment rate, which is at 9.1 percent and is almost certain to rise in the months ahead, barring an unexpected upsurge in economic activity.
The new jobs are generally in lower-paying fields, like home health care, and in part-time and temporary employment. These kinds of employment may be better than no work, but they are generally not the types of jobs that allow workers to get ahead.
The September report also shows the permanent scars caused by persistent joblessness. The share of workers who have been unemployed for more than six months increased from 42.9 percent to 44.6 percent, near its record high from early last year. That is likely to translate into irreversible reductions in the standard of living for millions of Americans because the longer one is unemployed, the harder it becomes to find new work, especially at previous pay levels.
Children will be among those most harmed by the jobs crisis. The Economic Policy Institute, using data from the September report, has calculated that 278,000 teachers and other public school employees have lost their jobs since the recession began in December 2007. Over the same period, 48,000 new teaching jobs were needed to keep up with the increased enrollments but were never created. In all, public schools are now short 326,000 jobs.
At a time when more and better education is seen as crucial to economic dynamism and competitiveness, larger class sizes and fewer teachers are the last thing the nation needs. Staffing reductions also mean that schools are less able to respond to the needs of poor children, whose ranks have increased by 2.3 million from 2008 to 2010.
The situation calls out for swift passage of Mr. Obama’s jobs bill and even more far-reaching efforts to revive growth and employment. The alternative is lasting damage from a jobs crisis that has already done enormous harm to families and communities.
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