From the Associated Press:

A wave of census hiring lifted payrolls by 431,000 in May, but job creation by private companies grew at the slowest pace since the start of the year. The unemployment rate dipped to 9.7 percent as people gave up searching for work.

The Labor Department’s new employment snapshot released Friday suggested that outside of the burst of hiring of temporary census workers by the federal government many private employers are wary of bulking up their work forces.

That indicates the economic recovery may not bring relief fast enough for millions of Americans who are unemployed.

Virtually all the job creation in May came from the hiring of 411,000 census workers. Such hiring peaked in May and will begin tailing off in June.

By contrast, hiring by private employers, the backbone of the economy, slowed sharply. They added just 41,000 jobs, down from 218,000 in April and the fewest since January.

The unemployment rate, which is derived from a separate survey than the payroll figures, fell to 9.7 percent from 9.9 percent. The dip partly reflected 322,000 people leaving the labor force for a variety of reasons.

All told, 15 million people were unemployed in May.

Counting people who have given up looking for work and part-timers who would rather be working full time, the “underemployment” rate fell to 16.6 percent in May from 17.1 percent in April. Even with the drop, the high underemployment figure shows how difficult it is for jobseekers to find work.

Employers across a range of industries last month added jobs at a slower pace—or cut them. Factories, professional and business services, leisure and hospitality companies, and education and health care firms all slowed hiring. Financial services, construction companies and retailers all pared jobs. Government, however, led the way in hiring, adding a whopping 390,000 positions last month.

Continue reading here. Keep in mind that the overwhelming majority of those government jobs are temporary.

It’s hard to find a politician who isn’t eager to “do something” about high unemployment. Turns out California has found one way to save and create certain kinds of jobs—spend like mad and raise taxes.

That job-creation strategy has worked quite well for government-sector workers. Problem is the statewide unemployment rate is still among the highest in the nation, and many private-sector employers are heading to states like Texas, where taxes are lower and regulations are lighter.

“I would love to have companies calling me saying, ‘We’d like to move to California, can you help us with that relocation?’ I get none of those calls,” says business relocation coach Joe Vranich. “The calls I do get are, ‘Hello, we want to move out of California, can you help us do that?’”

Vranich says there’s no one reason why businesses leave. He calls it “death by a thousand cuts,” where job creators get fed up with everything from high taxes to traffic gridlock and legal hassles.

Take Rick and Jack Newcombe, the father-son team that runs Creators Syndicate.

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Undeterred by stubbornly high unemployment rates, and a stimulus plan that has fallen flat, talk of a second stimulus package is growing louder.  But to shed the unsuccessful “stimulus” moniker, Democrats and government labor unions have adopted a “jobs plan.”

Paul Krugman, the New York Times columnist who’s never seen a government expenditure he didn’t like, Sunday  pointed to a “study” by the Economic Policy Institute, which alleges spending $40 billion over 3 years could create about a million “public-service” jobs.

In other words, Krugman and EPI would see fit to simply create government jobs, instead of trying to help the private sector.  That makes sense, given who supports EPI.

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Recovery.gov has a vast and challenging mandate: “to allow taxpayers to see precisely what entities receive [stimulus] money in addition to how and where the money is spent.” To its credit, Recovery.gov offers a fascinating look into how government goes about spending $787 billion.

However, the website is troubled with inaccuracies, and these problems are undermining its credibility. Wisconsin Democrat Rep. Dave Obey agrees: “The inaccuracies on recovery.gov that have come to light are outrageous and the Administration owes itself, the Congress, and every American a commitment to work night and day to correct the ludicrous mistakes.”

Given that stimulus award recipients are responsible for providing much of the information you see on Recovery.gov, it’s reasonable to expect some errors in the reporting process. Alas, some of the information seems to come out of thin air.

Phantom Congressional Districts.

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On Friday, in the name of holy transparency, the White House released the list of jobs created or saved with the stimulus funds. Now, let’s assume that the government can create jobs even though it can’t. Let’s assume that “job saved” is not the lamest excuse for government spending I have heard in my life time as a budget analyst. And let’s look at what this data means.

The White House claims that 640,329 were created or saved. That, by the way, is way less than what Christina Romer claimed would be created. Last week, she mentioned 1.4 million during a Joint Committee hearing. Remember.

First, $159 billion has been spent so far. That’s $248,273 per job.

However, when you look at some specific contracts that were awarded you find that some jobs were created or saved at an insane cost to taxpayers. For instance, $1,359,633,501 were awarded to CH2M WG IDAHO LLC, in WA to create 2,183 jobs. That’s $622,827 per job. That’s not as bad though as the  $258,646,800 awarded to the Brookhaven Science Associates, LLC in NY, to create 25 jobs. That’s over $10.3 million per job.

I would be happy with one of these jobs.

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