Millions Set to Lose Unemployment Benefits, Don't Worry, McDonald's Hired 62,000 in One Day, Well Yippee!!

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis "We still have a ways to go..."

As of March, about 14 million people

were unemployed and looking for work,

according to the household survey.

The Wall Street Journal
By Mark Whitehouse
April 30, 2011

5.5 million: Americans unemployed

and not receiving benefits

The job market may be on the mend, but that’s not much consolation to millions of Americans facing a frightening deadline: the end of their unemployment benefits.

The country’s unemployment rolls are shrinking fast, after expanding sharply last year as the government extended benefits to ease the pain of a deep economic slump. As of mid-March, about 8.5 million people were receiving some kind of unemployment payments, down from 11.5 million a year earlier, according to the Labor Department.

To some extent, the shrinkage reflects a desirable reality: Some people are leaving the unemployment rolls because they’re finding jobs. The number of employed in March was up nearly 1 million from a year earlier, according to the Labor Department’s household survey. That’s the biggest year-over-year rise since late 2007.

Many Americans, though, are simply running out of time. As of March, about 14 million people were unemployed and looking for work, according to the household survey. At the time the survey was done, about 8.5 million were receiving some kind of unemployment payments, according to the Labor Department’s Employment and Training Administration. That leaves about 5.5 million people unemployed without benefits, up 1.4 million from a year earlier.

There’s always a certain number of unemployed who don’t receive benefits. They may have just entered the labor force, quit their jobs or not been eligible for some other reason. But workers didn’t quit their jobs at a higher rate over the past year, and more exited the labor force than entered. That suggests the 1.4-million-person change largely reflects people losing their benefits.

For the more than 4 million Americans still receiving extended benefits, the picture isn’t encouraging. The longer they’ve been out of work, the harder it is to find a job. They’ve typically been unemployed for at least 26 weeks, and may have been out of work for as long as 99 weeks, which for many people is the limit.

In the coming months, hundreds of thousands more will drop off the unemployment rolls. The number of people using up their regular 26 weeks of unemployment payments peaked in August 2009 at nearly 800,000 a month. That means a lot of people should be hitting their 99-week limit right about now. And unless Congress does something unexpected, more people with shorter bouts of unemployment will start joining them as the government phases out extended benefits next year.

And what jobs are currently available

for the long-term unemployed?

The Wall Street Journal
By Sara Murray
April 1, 2011

More Jobs Doesn't Necessarily Mean More Good Jobs

Of the 230,000 private-sector jobs created in March, 199,000 of those were in the service sector. A large chunk of those jobs are in fields that are likely to provide a stable livelihood for those lucky enough to snag them – like some of the 78,000 added in professional and business services. But that’s less certain for, say, the 37,000 new workers in the leisure and hospitality industry.

More than half of those full-time workers who lost jobs between 2007 and 2009 and then found full-time work by early last year said their new jobs came with lower wages. Some 36% saw a pay cut of 20% or more. Complete Article

McDonald's Hires 62,000 in One Day

McDonald’s and its franchisees hired 62,000 people in the U.S. after receiving more than one million applications, the Oak Brook, Illinois-based company said today in an e-mailed statement. Previously, it said it planned to hire 50,000. 4/28/11: Complete Bloomberg Article

Average pay for the jobs is $8.30 an hour. That's compared to the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour, though in some states the minimum wage is higher. She said that restaurant managers can make $50,000 a year.