Jobless woes dominate financial news

It’s back to work Monday after a long holiday weekend – for some.

Employers cut another 467,000 jobs in June, according to last week’s report from the U.S. Department of Labor, boosting the U.S. unemployment rate to a 25-year high of 9.5 percent.

Making a living is the axis on which most households revolve, so don’t overlook myriad options to spin these routine government reports into timely, informative and human stories that will resonate with your audience and keep them looking to you for local ramifications and resources.

The monthly Employment Situation release, published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is one of the many economic data sources you should bookmark and note in your calendar. In addition to bottom-line totals, it sorts employment data by gender, race, wage and age and industry sectors, as well as updating totals for people who are involuntarily working part-time or who have given up and dropped out of the workforce. A close study of the release and its ancillary tables will yield many creative angles for follow-up trend stories that you can tailor to your region and pursue this week.

Teenagers, for example, who were expected to face a dismal summer-job outlook this year, nevertheless boosted employment by more than 24 percent in June. Other tidbits: average hours worked in a week dipped to 33, and some 9 million workers who want to work full-time are employed only part-time. .

About the only sector gains – as often is the case – were in the health care arena, which suggests a timely career-options story aimed at recent grads or displaced mid-career workers. The federal Occupational Outlook Handbook is one place to start, with analysis and statistics about ‘tomorrow’s jobs’ as well as links to state-by-state job market forecasts.

The worse-than-expected report also sets the stage for a number of household-driven releases later this week, including two consumer-sentiment gauges, the Mortgage Bankers Association weekly report on home-loan applications, the Federal Reserve’s monthly report on consumer credit use and a retail sales update from the International Council of Shopping Centers. Dismal employment news also drove major stock markets down in last weeks’ shortened trading session; investors will be watching for ripple effects as July unfolds.

Fill ‘em up

Ironically, work-bound commuters and other motorists will benefit from the job-loss news and its expected adverse effect on consumer spending. Crude oil and gasoline prices dropped last week on the news; they’re still up substantially from the start of the 2009 but well below the $4-plus average from a year ago this week. That’s according to the Automobile Association of America’s fuel gauge report, another reliable site to bookmark for the pump-price data that will play into so many of your upcoming consumer and economic stories

A handy source for local fuel prices – and the consumers who are keeping an eye on them – is GasBuddy.com, which features motorist reports on daily gas bargains in specific markets.

Come back to Your Daily Tipsheet each morning for advice on where to find sources, background and creative ways to make these important economic benchmarks relevant to your audience.