...rate of job loss slows

headlines do not show real story

Only 271,000 jobs were lost in April, a slight improvement over March. This is not bad news but not really good news, either.

The problem is that the economy has to add jobs every month, and it's not even close to adding jobs. April's job losses, while down from March (assuming the numbers are not revised upward at a later date), are still double those of April 2008. The U.S. has shed close to 6 million jobs in just one year. It needs to add 100,000 every month just to tread water with population growth. How long will it take to replace those 6 million jobs? So far we're not even making any headway.