The City Café

The Labor Department today has announced a net loss of 63,000 jobs in February. The job losses are not just limited to the construction industury either. Retailers cut 34,000 jobs and manufacturing employment also took a big hit. This is the largest employment loss in five years.

“Based on today’s Employment Report, if we are not in a recession, it is a darned good imitation of one,” said Kevin Giddis, managing director of fixed income at Morgan Keegan.

“I haven’t seen a job report this recessionary since the last recession,” said Jared Bernstein, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington. “This is a picture of a labor market becoming clearly infected by the contagion from the rest of the economy.”

Utah’s employment is still relatively strong, but there are some areas weakening. According to the recent Economic Report to the Governor Utah has 105,000 jobs statewide in construction. Construction jobs increased by 11% from 2006 (10,000 new jobs), however the previous year construction jobs increased by nearly 17%. Utah job growth in construction and mining is definitely slowing, but many other industries continue to remain strong.

This map represents a nice national illustration to where job growth, by county, is above or below the national average.

States and cities rarely dishonor their debts. The bonds they sell to investors are generally tax-free and much safer than those issued by corporations. But some officials complain that ratings firms assign municipal borrowers low credit scores compared with corporations. Taxpayers ultimately pay the price, the officials say, in the form of higher fees and interest costs on public debt.

The major complaint is coming from California (who currently rated A, but claims they should be rated triple A). However, the move to reform bond ratings has already attracted the support of half a dozen state, including Washington and Oregon. Apparently the group is lobbying Moody’s for some changes to the ratings scale. I doubt anything will change, but it is an interesting issue…and might become more important if the economy worsens.