The U.S. Labor Market Cools, and It's Not Just the Weather - Assignment Example

March 11, The U.S. labor market cools, and it’s not just the weather Summary of the article Mathew Philips ed the article, ‘The U.S. labor market cools, and it’s not just the weather,’ that the Bloomberg Business Week published on February 7, 2014. The author reports on employment rates in the nation and notes a disappointment in January 2014 as the actual number of created jobs in the economy, 113000, was less than the predicted figure of 180000. The figure is more that added employments in December that was the poorest in the last three years and while it was attributed to bad weather and was predicted to improve, the January figure did not reflect on the expected improvement.

The report also adjusted previous values on an upward trend. The bad weather, in December, persisted in January and influenced adjustment of data but the persistence indicate that the slow recovery from lost employments during the previous recession may be due to other factors than the bad weather. Retrenchment in the public sector is one of the factors to the poor recovery because while the private sector created about 142000 jobs in January, the public sector lost about 29000 jobs and this occurred and the federal and state levels.

Most of the aspects of employment however remained the same. Average working period per remained constant at 34.4 hours while average hourly wage improved by just five cents. The number of people out of employment remained the same while unemployment rate reduced by 0.1 percent from 6.7 percent. Reduction in number of beneficiaries on unemployment benefits and number seeking jobs could have accounted for this. The labor force however grew by 499000 while total employment increased by 616000. This is however still above the threshold limit beyond which the central bank pledged to maintain minimal interest rates.

Many of the new employment opportunities rose from highly paying sectors in which retail trade was the most significant (Philips 1). Implications to the business worldUnemployment is one of the indicators of an economy’s status and its measure and trend is significant to the corporate sector. A reducing trend in unemployment rates is an indicator of recovery from the previous recession and informs business organizations to expand their production capacity because of better economic prospects.

Another implication of the article on the corporate sector arises from its clarification of the source of poor trend in unemployment indicators. Explaining cause of the poor observation distinguishes progress in the corporate sector from the declining opportunities in the public sector to offer confidence in the economy, a significant factor to forecasting, budgeting, and goal setting. The article therefore develops confidence in the business world and may facilitate investments, by corporate players towards faster economic recovery.

Personal opinionThe article is credible, based on its reliance on statistics and its neural approach. It is also informative to business organization and to the public who have a stake in economic progress. As a corporate manager, I would use the information to initiate expansion strategies because the reported statistics indicates improving potentials and confidence in the corporate sector. As an individual citizen who is seeking employment opportunity or better paying jobs, I would focu on the private sector because of its expansive opportunities than the public sector.

Works citedPhilips, Mathew. “The U.S. labor market cools, and it’s not just the weather.” Bloomberg Business Week. February 7, 2014. Web. March 11, 2014.