By Maxine Shapiro, KERA 90.1 business commentator
Dallas, TX – It's Friday so "It's Only Money," a review of the big and not-so-big stories of the week. I'm Maxine Shapiro with KERA Marketplace Midday.
The good news, North Texans are finally going to thaw out, as Southern winds push the thermometer above 70. Believe me, I'd much rather discuss the weather today.
National unemployment for February rose one-tenth percent to 5.8%. The biggest jolt to economists was the number of jobs lost in one month: 308,000. That's the highest number we've seen since the mass layoffs after September 11th. Even the most pessimistic economist predicted only 50,000 jobs would be lost. Eight and a half million people were unemployed in February. And almost two million of them have been without work for nearly seven months.
Today, the Texas Workforce Commission released the unemployment stats for January. Texans saw a decrease in unemployment by one-tenth percent to 6.4%. But the decline must have been in some other part of Texas. The Fort Worth/Arlington metro area posted an increase in unemployment to 6.4 from December's 5.7%. It's bad, but not that bad. Both the national and statewide unemployment figures are seasonally adjusted. The metro breakdown is not. So, if we compare January 2002 to this January, the increase was only three-tenths percent. The Dallas Metro area unemployment, not seasonally adjusted, was 7.3%. Last January it was 7.2%. And December, 6.3%. If you're looking for low unemployment, head on up to South Dakota, where the rate is only 2.8%.
And if you had to find anything cheery in today's report, those that are working are earning more as wages rose last month. But so did productivity, which means if you got a raise, you deserve it - you're working harder and longer hours. For KERA Marketplace Midday, I'm Maxine Shapiro.
Marketplace Midday Reports air on KERA 90.1 Monday - Friday at 1:04 p.m. To contact Maxine Shapiro, please send emails to mshapiro@kera.org.