Good job news?

Today many stories in the news were about the amazingly low rate of unemployment, 8.6%, I believe. What I find striking is that while they were saying the private sector gained 120,000 jobs the Government cut over 20,000 jobs. Overall employment is going up, but it looks to me like good, decent paying jobs with benefits (i.e. public sector jobs) are being cut and then they are being replaced by seasonal work that is paying lower wages without benefits. When I hear the term service sector employees I do not think high wages and benefits. How many of these jobs will be cut again in January?

Sure, more people have more jobs. But the real question is not how many people are employed. The real question should be whether or not those jobs can sustain the people that are doing them. When an employee loses a decent paying job with benefits and then is hired somewhere else with minimal wages and no benefits those two jobs are not equal. We are getting sidetracked by the sheer number of unemployed people or the number of jobs created that we are ignoring that fact that people are working so that they can have their lives and their livelihood.

Let's stop looking at facts and figures and instead focus on individual's ability to live.