Invest In "Will Work For Food" Signs!

If you haven't heard, its ugly out there. Today's job report just drove that point home. Analysts had a consensus estimate of around 320,000 jobs lost. This, in and of itself, is nothing pretty. But, the news was even worse.

Employment for the month of November fell by 533,000 jobs. This was the largest single month decline in jobs since the mid-1970's. The unemployment rate in the United States now stands at a painful 6.7%...OUCH!!

But, not to scare anyone...the picture is actually worse than this. The unemployment report is compiled by the Department of Labor. They conduct two surveys, one survey polls businesses and the other polls households. The highly touted "unemployment number" is the result of the business poll. But what about the household surveys?

The household survey uncovers and additional 637,000 workers who have just given up. They are not counted in the unemployment number because that number only counts people actively looking for work. Well, there’s a large number who have just stopped looking.

Add to that number 621,000 people who have only been able to find part time work. A number of these people choose to work part time, but the number is also made up of many who have been looking for full time work and cant find it so they are working part time to make ends meet. These people are not counted in the unemployment number because they are technically employed.

Well surely that’s the end of the bad news right? I wish it were so. There was a number in the report that many looked to as a positive sign, but beware a wolf in sheep's clothing. The number? Weekly pay rate. The majority of the "still employed" saw an increase in income of about 2.8 percent over the last year. Great!! Right?

Nope, hate to keep pouring it on, but the rate of inflation stands above 3%. So, despite an increase in pay, workers who have managed to hang on to their jobs have not been able to keep up with inflation. This effects the amount of disposable income families have, which, of course, has a negative impact on spending and just keeps the economic snowball rolling downhill.

According to the New York Times, "the share of men ages 16 and over who are working is now at its lowest level since the government started keeping statistics in the 1940s". See Workers Give Up

Well, with all that bad news things are certainly about to get better, right? Don't shoot the messenger, but I don't think so. Just yesterday, AT&T (T) announced it was cutting 12,000 jobs, DuPont (DD) is cutting 2,000, Viacom (VIA) is reducing by 850 and Credit Suisse (CS) is going to cut more than 5,000.

If you have a job, hang on to it. At the same time, you may want to keep your resume fresh and start networking just in case things turn south at your place of employ. You don’t want to get caught unprepared.

For more information on the stock and options markets check out the wealth of information at BetterTrades.