• Listen to this segment

The U.S. Department of Labor released data on Friday showing that the economy ended the year in December with more job losses. Despite the expectations of more hopeful analysts, employment fell by 85,000 jobs last month raising questions as to when hiring would begin to rebound nationally. The latest report from the Department of Labor also included a preliminary revision of its data for November illustrating that the economy actually added four thousand jobs instead of loosing 11,000 as was then previously stated. The respite from the two-year recessionary trend of employment roll reductions proved to be temporary by December’s figures propelled by continual losses in the construction and manufacturing sectors. The job losses, however, have left the unemployment rate still hovering at 10% but only as adjusted to reflect the number of people who have left the workforce. In another indication of the state of the economy, the National Association of Realtors reported last week that pending home sales fell by 16% in November. Some economic analysts have hinged the ability of the housing market’s recovery to a substantial increase in job creation.

GUEST: Dean Baker, Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Author of the forthcoming book, “False Profits: Recovering from the Bubble Economy”

Read Dean Baker’s analysis at http://www.cepr.net/index.php/data-bytes/jobs-bytes/job-loss-for-decade/

Read about Dean Baker’s Book: http://p3books.com/falseprofits/