Much Obliged. Not

On January 11, 2012 I blogged that Governor Cowboy's (Kitzhaber) vaunted economic plan had produced the fourth consecutive month of decline in the state's economic indicators. BTW, two months of consecutive decline = recession. Well, some things just don't change. 

Oregon's unemployment rate went up in July. I'm shocked! I'll let the Statesman Journal tell the news:

"Oregon’s jobless rate increased slightly in July to 8.7 percent, as the private sector posted anemic job growth.

The state’s private sector added only 100 jobs on a seasonally adjusted basis in July, Oregon Employment Department officials said Tuesday. Meanwhile, Oregon’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate rose two-tenths of a point from June.

Nick Beleiciks, a state employment economist, said strong job gains in professional and business services and the construction sector were offset by losses in other industries. The largest job losses were in educational and health services, manufacturing, and a category called “other services.”
Government employment experienced a seasonally adjusted increase of 1,700 jobs. Those jobs were broadly spread across federal, state, and local government employment.

Beleiciks said he couldn’t identify a trend to explain the recent gain in government employment."

www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20120815/BUSINESS/308150070/Oregon-s-unemployment-rate-up-despite-new-jobs?odyssey=nav%7Chead

Mr. Beleiciks may not know why government employment gained, but I've got a pretty good idea. Which of these things is not like the other? That's right kids - government employment goes up up and away and the private sector goes down, down, down. Perhaps there is an inverse relationship that has something to do with employers having to pay surcharges for unemployment taxes and taxes on gross income, not net, and all the other taxes to pay for the government spending.  On the other hand, this is Oregon and nobody cares as demonstrated by electing a hack politician to the governorship for a third term when he previously said the state was ungovernable. At least his folks get government jobs or in the case of his squeeze, government contracts. Some things never change.