Fact Check: Fewer Americans are working now than when Obama took office

A gain of 4.5 million is only a net gain of 300,000 over the course of the Obama administration to date. The private jobs figure stood at 111 million in January 2009, the month Obama took office.

And total nonfarm payrolls, including government workers, are down from 133.6 million workers at the beginning of 2009 to 133.2 million in July 2012. There's been a net loss of nearly 1 million public-sector jobs since Obama took office, despite a surge in temporary hiring for the 2010 census.

Meanwhile, the jobs that have come back aren't the same ones that were lost. According to a study released last week by the liberal-leaning National Employment Law Project, low-wage fields such as retail sales and food service are adding jobs nearly three times as fast as higher-paid occupations.

The figure of 4.5 million jobs is accurate if you look at the most favorable period and category for the administration. But overall, there are still fewer people working now than when Obama took office at the height of the recession. Read more >>

Public Workers Face Continued Layoffs

In California, the governor is threatening to eliminate 15,000 state jobs. When school begins in Cleveland this fall, more than 500 teachers probably will be out of work. And in Trenton — which has already cut a third of its police force, hundreds of school district employees and at least 150 other public workers — the only way the city will forestall the loss of 60 more firefighters is if a federal grant comes through.

Government payrolls grew in the early part of the recovery, largely because of federal stimulus measures. But since its postrecession peak in April 2009 (not counting temporary Census hiring), the public sector has shrunk by 657,000 jobs. The losses appeared to be tapering off earlier this year, but have accelerated for the last three months, creating the single biggest drag on the recovery in many areas. 

Fourteen states plan to resolve their budget gaps by reducing aid to local governments, according to a report by the National Governors Association and the National Association of State Budget Officers.  Read more >>

Thousands of British Police Join Anti-Austerity Protest

Thousands of off-duty police officers took to the streets in London on Thursday in a rare display of anger against government austerity, joining a protest by public sector workers including immigration officials, healthcare workers and prison officers.

Unions predicted some 400,000 public sector workers would walk out, a smaller protest than in November when Britain saw the biggest strike in years, but a significant show of discontent just after Prime Minister David Cameron's government took a drubbing at local elections.

The government said only about 150,000 had taken part and dismissed the action as "futile". Cabinet Office minister Frances Maude said, "public services were mainly unaffected". However, the sight of some 30,000 police officers marching through London will be embarrassing for Cameron's centre-right Conservatives, who pride themselves on being the party of law and order. More...

US is Becoming a Nation of Part-Time Workers

As today's NFP report once again showed, the average hourly earnings barely budged at $23.38 from $23.37 last month, and in fact declined on an inflation-adjusted basis. Why? Because as we [Zero Hedge] predicted both in February (and in 2010) the US is increasingly becoming a population of part-time workers, as full time jobs disappear for good, and are offshored abroad at best.

April confirmed everything we had been warning about: in the month, full time jobs dropped to 114,478 from 115,290, an epic drop of 812,000 in full time jobs which was the biggest since... March 2009! The offset? Why a surge in part-time jobs of course, which increased by 508,000 in the month of April.

So while seasonally adjusted, birth/death recasted jobs may have increased by 115,000, the real quality jobs, imploded, which unfortunately is merely a part of a longer-term secular trend as part of the new part-time normal. More...

750,000 public-sector workers on strike in UK

Image via WikipediaBritish teachers and civil servants went on strike on Thursday over plans to reform public-sector pensions.

Up to 750,000 public-sector workers — including driving examiners and customs officials — were expected to join the walkout, part of a growing wave of opposition to the Conservative-led government's deficit-cutting regime of tax hikes, benefit curbs and spending cuts.

Mirroring protests across continental Europe against government-imposed austerity , the strike could be a taste of wider protests to come later this year.

Many schools across Britain were closed or classes disrupted and air passengers were expected to face delays because immigration officials were among the striking workers. Courts and government buildings were also affected.

The unions say the strike is just the start of a campaign of labor action on a scale unseen in Britain for three decades.

"On Thursday we will see hundreds of thousands of civil and public servants on strike," said Mark Serwotka, leader of the Public and Commercial Services Union. "We fully expect to be joined by millions more in the autumn." More...

Zuckerman - America’s Public Servants Are Now Its Masters

Political tension is bound to grow when jobs disappear faster in the private than the public sector, just as compensation in the former is squeezed more. There was a time when government work offered lower salaries than comparable jobs in the private sector, a difference for which the public sector compensated by providing more security and better benefits. No longer. These days, government employees are better off in almost every area: pay, benefits, time off and security, on top of working fewer hours. Public workers have become a privileged class – an elite who live better than their private-sector counterparts. Public servants have become the public’s masters. More...

Greek Unions Stage 24-hour Nationwide General Strike

Alkman Granitsas and Nick Skrekas
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
Greece was paralyzed by a nationwide general strike Wednesday with sporadic incidents of violence breaking out as angry protesters clashed with police.

Police in Athens fired tear gas at protesters trying to break through a police line in front of Parliament, and in Greece's second city of Thessaloniki, they fired tear gas at youths throwing rocks at shops.

The strike has affected government services across the country, shutting ministries and public offices. State hospitals and public utilities are operating with skeleton staff. Shopkeepers joined the strike at midday local time, while journalists, bank workers, teachers, court workers, lawyers and doctors have also walked off the job.

All flights in and out of Greek airports have been canceled, while rail and ferry operations nationwide have been suspended.

The strike is seen as a key test of the government's ability to shepherd through tough austerity measures in exchange for a multibillion-euro bailout. Sunday, the Greek government agreed to a three-year austerity and reform program in exchange for a EUR110 billion bailout from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund.

Facing spiraling borrowing costs and a debt payment later this month that it can't pay, the government is scrambling to pass through legislation implementing the reforms, and Parliament is expected to vote as soon as Thursday on the measures. Under the terms of the deal with the EU and IMF, the government has announced a EUR30 billion package of austerity measures that will slash public-sector wages, cut pensions, freeze public- and private-sector pay and liberalize Greece's labor laws.

In addition, Greece has pledged to raise taxes including a 2 percentage-point increase in Greece's top value-added tax rate to 23%, and hikes in excise taxes for fuel, tobacco and alcohol.

Millions of Greek workers are taking part in Wednesday's strike, which was called by Greece's two major umbrella unions, the private-sector GSEE and the public-sector ADEDY, amid widespread discontent over the measures.

In the center of Athens, tens of thousands of protesters gathered in one of the largest public demonstrations in years, with unconfirmed estimates that the number could have topped 100,000. Police officials put the figure at 20,000, while GSEE and ADEDY told Dow Jones Newswires that a total of 50,000 took part in their protests alone, while the communist-backed PAME union, also on the streets Wednesday, usually attracts twice as many people at its protests as the other unions.

GSEE described it as the largest protest ever and said "the struggle and the mobilization of workers will continue and will intensify as long as these harsh and unfair measures aren't withdrawn."

The president of ADEDY, Spyros Papaspyros, said: "This rally was double the size of the largest rally that has ever been held in Greece...tomorrow afternoon, we will also be holding a protest in front of Parliament, and if the government does not listen, there will be more strike action next week."

And PAME executive member Lefteris Papaconstantopoulos said: "We held rallies in 67 cities that attracted a mass turnout, and it's going to take some time for us to gather the numbers, but it was multiple times higher than our biggest protests we ever had for the May Day mobilizations."

PAME also vowed to continue and intensify the protests. "We will be holding another protest tomorrow [1500 GMT] in the center of the capital because the struggle has just begun," Papaconstantopoulos said.

Thousands of Greeks Strike; Flights grounded, schools closed

BBC

Greece hit by nationwide strike over austerity measures

Protesters take to the streets in Athens

Thousands of Greeks have rallied against deficit-cutting measures during a national public sector strike.

Flights have been grounded, many schools are closed and hospitals are operating an emergency-only service. The prime minister, who wants to freeze pay, gather more taxes and reform pensions, insisted that the proposals would be fully implemented.

EU leaders will discuss Greece's difficulties on Thursday amid concern the crisis could threaten the euro. European finance ministers are also due to hold a teleconference on Wednesday to talk about the issue.

Public anger

Despite heavy rain, there have been rallies across Greece throughout the day, with thousands of striking workers and pensioners gathering in the capital, Athens. Several thousand people were also reported to have protested in Greece's second city, Thessaloniki. The rallies have been mainly peaceful, but in one incident police fired tear gas at rubbish collectors who tried to drive through a police cordon.

Some demonstrators threw stones at the police but the trouble was quickly defused. The unions regard the austerity programme as a declaration of war against the working and middle classes, the BBC's Malcolm Brabant reports from the capital.

He says their resolve is strengthened by their belief that this crisis has been engineered by external forces, such as international speculators and European central bankers. "It's a war against workers and we will answer with war, with constant struggles until this policy is overturned," said Christos Katsiotis, a union member affiliated to the Communist Party, at the Athens rally.

Others in the capital either see the cuts as necessary or argue that the strike is politically motivated. "We have to implement the austerity measures, or the country will not be able to get out of this crisis," said Katerina, a private sector employee. "We have to pay for the mistakes of the past."

On Tuesday, Prime Minister George Papandreou's socialist government announced that it intends to raise the average retirement age from 61 to 63 by 2015 in a bid to save the cash-strapped pensions system.

The move comes on top of other planned austerity measures, including a public sector salary freeze and a hike in petrol prices, announced last week. More...