85,000 Americans lost employment in December

The announcement Friday by the Labor Department that the U.S. lost 85,000 jobs in December is causing some concern that the U.S. economic recovery is faltering.

Compared to November’s gain in jobs (the first gain since the recession began), December’s loss has brought many questions about the U.S. recovery.

The NASDAQ index gained 0.53% today while S&P 500 dropped 0.11%, falling from a 15 month high.

The dollar index which gauges the U.S. currency against those of six major trading partners declined 0.5 percent to 77.509.

However, despite this bad news, investors seem to still be heading towards the U.S. economy for a few reasons.

U.S. Inventories rose 1.5% to $386.26 billion, the Commerce Department said Friday while a 0.3% decline was expected on Wall street, making it the largest since a 1.5% climb in October 2004.

The U.S. economy seems to be headed in the right direction, especially compared to European countries including the U.K. who are facing a large burden of debt at the moment amongst other problems. 

The loss of jobs in December, as troubling as it may seem is not as severe as many are making out to be. After all, 741,000 jobs were lost in January of 2009 just a year ago, when numbers like 600,000 and 700,000 jobs lost a month were common.

The fact that the U.S. has decreased unemployment down to 85,000 of the past year is a sign of long term improvement, not failure. 

 This is something investors realize. They realize that the job sector is lagging behind every other sector of the economy, and do not use it as a measure of the total economies worth. Rather they use times like these when the dollar is weak as a good buying opportunity.