Fresh Loaf

June 2009 U.S. unemployment rate: 9.5 percent

July 2009 U.S. unemployment rate: 9.4 percent

Number of months, before July 2009, since the U.S. saw a decrease in unemployment: 16

Number of points by which the Dow Jones Industrial Average increased immediately following the release of the new unemployment data: 142

Average U.S. weekly income, June 2009: $609.37

Average U.S. weekly income, July 2009: $614.34

Last month’s unemployment rate in Georgia: 10.1 percent

Jobs lost in Georgia since around this time last year: 209,500

Increase in Georgia jobs in health care and educational services, according to the most recent statistics: 12,000

Sources: AJC.com, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Washington Post

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Those nifty contrarians at Slate, God bless ‘em, have gone through the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and made a fun and depressing animation of a heady few months of job gains followed by a blood-red pattern of job loss. The animation, which covers January 2007 to February 2009, provides some much-needed context to the headlines and numbers we’ve seen thrown about.

It’s interesting to watch how metropolitan regions went from blue to red. Not surprising, sure, as this is where the bulk of people live. But notice the areas where jobs grew. I heard an interesting rumor while reporting for the Green Guide that laid-off workers in Florida’s manufacturing industry were migrating north into south Georgia to look for jobs. You don’t see much of that in this animation, or you don’t see if they landed work, but it’d be interesting to also plug migration data into this map.

And look at that little blue dot along the Mid-Atlantic. That’s Washington, D.C., people! Or at least I think it is! Regardless, socialism! Government job programs! Big Government blah blah blah! (Click the screenshot to head to Slate’s site and watch the animation.)

(Screenshot from Slate)

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NOT A SHOCKER: Last week

Late last fall, Sam Warren lost a client who’d fallen on hard times. That client was the state of Georgia.

The 52-year-old consultant and Powder Springs resident, who made his living writing operational manuals for corporations and government agencies, learned the state was instituting a “hard freeze” on outside contracts. Warren, who says never in his life has he left one job without another firmly in place, started making calls to drum up more business. Then he made some more calls.

Now, friends who told Warren in November that they’d try to help him secure work are looking for work themselves.

“It’s dry,” he says. “Dry and dead.”

Last week, Warren was among the estimated 19,000 people who packed into the Georgia World Congress Center to compete for what’s beginning to seem like an impossible find: a job.

Read the rest of this feature here.

(Photo by Joeff Davis)

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• More violent crimes in metro Atlanta — this time in Roswell — even after Mayor Franklin announced yesterday that crime is down around these parts.
• Unemployment hits 16-year high. More than 11 million Americans are now unemployed.
• Hamas and Israel say no to the U.N. demand for a ceasefire.
• Sarah Palin wants Katie Couric to know that Couric “is not the center of everybody’s universe,” further proving how behind on media information Palin is. Literate people have known that for awhile.
• With no writers’ strike to worry about this year, the Golden Globes award ceremony is back on. Now the stars will have to party hard enough for two year’s worth.
• Obama’s planned stimulus package was met with derision from both parties. Not surprising since Democrats are frequently against tax cuts and Republicans are frequently against financial assistance.
• Russia and Ukraine manage to get along. Maybe they should clue other fighting nations into the finer points of nonviolent negotiation.

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