Another lousy jobs report.

As James Pethokoukis notes, this is now 16 straight months with an unemployment rate of 9 percent or higher.

A number I always find amusing and illustrative is the employment rate in the construction sector; when the stimulus passed, we were told about all of those “shovel-ready” infrastructure projects of roads and bridges and such that would help jump-start the economy.

According to the latest numbers, 5,914,000 Americans worked in the construction field in August 2010. When that “shovel ready” stimulus passed in February 2009, the number was 6 million. Its peak in the interim was 6,225,000 in July 2009.

During the Bush years, the number of Americans working in this field peaked at 8,045,000 in August 2006; its low was 6,224,000 in February 2003. Most years it averaged around 6.7 million; with the exception of February 2008, the number was 7 million or more from April 2005 to October 2008.

UPDATE: @#$%^! ”Employment bottomed in December 2009 at 129.588 million — two years after peaking at 137.951 million. At this year’s pace, the U.S. wouldn’t recoup all those 8.36 million lost jobs until September 2017 — 117 months after the December 2007 high.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Other observations I’m sharing via Twitter:

  • @PressSec conveniently ignores “1.1 million discouraged workers in August, an increase of 352,000 from a year earlier.”
  • What recession? BLS # of non-postal federal workers, 2/2009: 2,050,000. BLS # of non-postal federal workers, August 2010: 2,148,800.
  • I hope the president tries his “we’re moving in the right direction” spin after news that unemployment rose last month.