Nouriel Roubini, the economist known as Doctor Doom as a result of his dark forecast on world economy believes that the U.S. labor market data are “pathetic”.
The economist believes that, in order to stabilize the labor market, there was a need to create at least 150,000 new jobs, not only 50,000 as indicated in the figures for July.
“The only reason the unemployment rate went up, not down, was that 200,000 people left the labor market”, according to Roubini. According to him, unemployment fell, not because there were new jobs created, but because people are so discouraged, that they simply abandon the labor market “.
Roubini said that although not formally in recession, growth data are so weak that Americans will feel as they were in a recession. Also, any attempt by the Federal Reserve to buy assets from the market (Quantitative Easing) to enliven the economy, will prove to be a failure, which is observable by the decreasing of the money allocations for this program.
U.S. labor market added 117,000 new jobs in July, the unemployment rate reaching 9.1% after July it stood at 9.2%.
The data on the labor market for May and June was revised up by 56,000 new jobs. Average hourly wage increased in the period by 10 cents, or 0.4%, to $23.13.
Work week remained unchanged at 34.3 hours. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch have previously forecast a rise in the number of jobs by 75,000 posts.