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March 7, 2008

Bush to speak on economy in wake of jobs report / Video

WASHINGTON -- President Bush will make a statement on the nation's economy this afternoon, hours after a Labor Department report was released that showed employers slashing 63,000 jobs last month -- the most in five years.

He's scheduled to speak live at 2:10 p.m. Projo.com will stream video of his speech here.

The jobs report is the starkest sign yet that the country is heading dangerously toward recession or is in one already.

The report also indicated that the nation's unemployment rate dipped from 4.9 percent in January to 4.8 percent last month as hundreds of thousands of people - perhaps discouraged by their prospects - left the civilian labor force.

Job losses were widespread, with hefty cuts coming from construction, manufacturing, retailing, financial services and a variety of professional and business services. Those losses swamped gains elsewhere, including education and health care, leisure and hospitality and the government.

The latest snapshot of the nation's employment climate underscored the heavy toll of the housing and credit crises on companies, jobseekers and the overall economy.

To provide relief to persistent credit problems, the Federal Reserve announced today that it will increase the amount of loans it plans to make available to banks this month to $100 billion.

It has already provided a total of $160 billion in short-term loans to cash-strapped banks since the auctions began in December. Another Fed step will involve making $100 billion available to a broad range of financial players through a series of separate transactions.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrials were down by nearly 115 points in early afternoon trading -- to just under 12,000 -- as the Fed's actions helped to blunt worry about the eroding jobs situation.

The Labor report also showed that January's job losses were worse than the government first reported. Employers cut 22,000 jobs, versus 17,000.

It was the first monthly back-to-back job losses since May and June 2003, when the job market was still struggling to recover from the blows of the 2001 recession.

The health of the nation's job market is critical in shaping how the overall economy fares. If companies continue to reduce hiring, that will spell more trouble.

March 7, 2008

Bush to speak on economy in wake of jobs report / Video

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