They're Lying! 20 Million People Lost Their Jobs in 2011!

How Many People Really Lost Their Jobs in 2011?

How Many Jobs Have Been Created or Lost in 2013 To Date?

Update for all of 2012 HERE: How Many People Lost Their Jobs in 2012?

All Jobs Reports (2011 to 2013) Indexed HERE!

Some will say:  "20 million people lost their jobs!  That's a huge number.  How can anybody say that we're making progress in employment?"

Well, we have to look at the number of people who were laid off compared to the number of people who were hired.. and compared to the number of people who quit:

How Many People Were Laid Off in 2011?  Yes, it's true:  20,041,000

How Many First Time Claims for Unemployment were filed in 2011?  21,688,000

How Many People Quit in 2011?   23,083,000

How Many People Were "Separated" from their work for all reasons in 2011?  46,980,000


So almost 47,000,000 people quit or lost their jobs in 2011.  But.....  

How Many People Were Hired in 2011?  48,416,000


One million more people were hired than people who quit or were laid off in 2011.

How Many New Jobs Were Added in 2011?  1,820,000 total net.

We know that there were a grand total of 1,820,000 jobs added in 2011; 2,091,000 were gained in the private sector, while 271,000 were lost in the government sector.  

We know that the unemployment rate fell from 9.4% in December 2010 to 8.5% in December 2011 (and 8.3% now, as of January 2012).  We know that, while 12,758,000 people are considered "officially unemployed" now, we also know that 1,300,000 FEWER people are reporting themselves as unemployed at the end of 2011, in December, vs. a year ago in December 2010.

But we also know that, in good times and in bad, in improving times and in deteriorating times, people are laid off and people are hired.  The unemployment rate goes down and the job numbers go up when the number of people getting hired exceeds the number of people getting laid off or quitting over a period of time.  The unemployment rate goes up and the job numbers go down when the number of people getting hired is lower than the number of people getting laid off or quitting over a period of time.

Latest Jobs & Unemployment Numbers & Reports HERE!

(Including Jobs Lost and Gained in 2011, 2012, 2013 month by month; jobs numbers year by year 1999, since Obama took office.) 

How Many People Were Laid Off in 2008?  

There was a NET loss of 3,603,000 jobs in 2008.  That is, over 3 million MORE people were laid off or quit than were hired.  

How Many Were Laid Off Compared to How Many Were Hired in 2011?

So let's look at how many people actually were laid off and how many were hired as reported to the Bureau of Labor Statistics and published on their JOLTS (Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey) in 2011.  (I use the latest revisions, which are extracted from the Bureau of Labor Statistics databases.)  The number of 1st Time Unemployment Claims comes from the Weekly Department of Labor report.  It comes close but does not equal the number of people laid off because 1) It is a weekly report, and the Layoff numbers from JOLTS are monthly, 2) Not all people who are laid off apply for unemployment for various reasons.   3)  People who quit may apply for unemployment and collect in some circumstances.

Month	...# Laid off...	#1st Claims	# Quits.......	# Separations	# Hires...	#Job Openings
Jan	1,541,000	2,137,000	1,679,000	3,612,000	3,769,000	2,741,000
Feb	1,620,000	1,570,000	1,910,000	3,825,000	3,986,000	3,025,000
Mar	1,606,000	1,581,000	1,924,000	3,805,000	4,067,000	3,123,000
Apr	1,603,000	2,114,000	1,887,000	3,833,000	4,001,000	2,953,000
May	1,837,000	1,707,000	2,000,000	4,145,000	4,129,000	3,034,000
June	1,773,000	1,711,000	1,904,000	3,993,000	4,058,000	3,169,000
July	1,694,000	2,060,000	1,969,000	3,962,000	3,976,000	3,213,000
Aug	1,687,000	1,644,000	2,006,000	3,960,000	4,060,000	3,129,000
Sept	1,723,000	1,672,000	2,000,000	4,052,000	4,150,000	3,377,000
Oct	1,595,000	2,026,000	1,923,000	3,898,000	4,042,000	3,224,000
Nov	1,718,000	1,585,000	1,955,000	3,986,000	4,132,000	3,118,000
Dec	1,644,000	1,881,000	1,926,000	3,909,000	4,046,000	3,376,000
Total:	20,041,000	21,688,000	23,083,000	46,980,000	48,416,000	37,482,000

(January 2012 initial claims:  1,509,000 for four weeks or 377,500 a week 
compared to January 2011 initial claims:  2,137,000 for five weeks or 427,400 a week.)

Number of People Quitting Now Exceeds the Number Getting Laid Off

First of all, it should be evident that layoffs and initial claims have been coming down over the months.  The numbers popped up again in Spring, then continued downwards.  But more important than the number of layoffs going down is that the number of quits has gone up and now outpaces the rate of layoffs every month.  (This wasn't true in 2009 or in 2010.)  This means that companies can no longer count on employees not leaving.. that can only be good for the labor market as a whole. 


As a result of fewer layoffs and more people quitting, we now have more people getting hired than we have total "separations" ("Separations" are the total of people leaving an employer for all reasons, including being laid off, people quitting, people retiring, and "other".) 

Of the 48,000,000 hires that employers reported in 2011, in simple percentages, 41% were replacements for people laid off, 48% were replacements for people who quit, about 8% were replacements for people who left for "other" reasons (including retirement), and 3% represented expansion; that is, new employees, not replacements.

Things are moving in the right direction.

There is just no way that anyone can look at these numbers over the course of a year and see anything negative in them... other than we need more of the same at an accelerating pace.  We had about 5,000 new hires a month during the mid-2000's, and that is what we need to make a big dent in the unemployment rate.