Finding a job is not the easiest thing to do these days as the job market is not growing at a rate that is consistent with an economic recovery. The amount of unemployed in the United States continues to hover around 9 percent, which is very high and doesn’t seem to fluctuate much month to month like the experts had hoped. Once the economy picks up, jobs will be added at a quicker rate without them using business loans, but right now, modest numbers are all we are seeing. The unemployment numbers should be less than the jobs added number to get the economy back on track, but that has not been the case. Although we had seen some promising numbers at the beginning of the year, things are stale right now and the outlook, at least for the summer, is looking rather bleak. Although we can never predict what will happen in the next few months, experts believe the recovery will take some time, much more than originally thought. We need to keep our hopes up and look for any positive signs in the upcoming months that the recovery has stabilized and is starting to gain momentum.

Claims for unemployment benefits have been over 400,000 for months now, with a 9,000 increase this past week alone. Experts had estimated that they would be at 415,000, but ended up at 429,000, up from 420,000 a week ago. This, of course, proves that the economy is slowing and that jobs are simply not being added at a fast enough rate to curb the unemployment claims that are coming in every day. Another sign of the slowing recovery is reflected in the new home sales numbers that they release every month. New home sales were down in May, but inventories of new homes were also down meaning that they have not been making as many and have been following the rules of supply and demand. Since new home sales are so low, builders have been slowing and trying to fill the ones they have before moving on to building. This tactic is very wise and it will be better for them to fill empty new homes already built than to continue building new homes that will just sit there vacant for an undetermined length of time.

Many people agree that we need to do what we can to boost the economy, but they also realize that the recent stimulus has not had the effect that was desired. It was put into action to help slow unemployment and speed up the recovery, but it simply hasn’t done the job. The one thing that many have not mentioned is how bad it may have been if the stimulus was never even put into place. We may have had even more problems with job loss and home inventories, so we should be happy that it’s not any worse than it is, because it absolutely could have been worse. We have to stay positive and do whatever we can to help with the recovery.