Friday and Saturday evening news reports on the nation’s Hispanic networks were about everything but good news – specifically information relating to the booming United States economy - as Univision, Estrella TV and Azteca América chose to continue on a Trump-bashing binge while purposely keeping their audiences in the dark about the blockbuster jobs report issued by the U.S. Department of Labor on Friday, September 7, 2018.
According to a statement from the White House Council of Economic Advisers, “The United States economy continues to enjoy its longest, consecutive streak of positive monthly job numbers. The pace of job growth in 2018 averages 207,000 jobs per month—exceeding average monthly gains in 2016 (195,000) and 2017 (182,000). Since President Donald J. Trump took office, 3.6 million jobs have been created and there have been more than 4 million new jobs since the election in November 2016.”
Rather than acknowledge that the Trump Administration is making history with, for example, Hispanic unemployment rate at 4.7%, a national unemployment rate that remained at 3.9 percent, “one of the lowest levels in half a century,” as reported by the Washington Post, the Latino media centered their attention on Obama’s anti-Trump diatribe about “these are dangerous times”, the mass graves in the Narco kingdom of Tijuana, Mexico, immigration “abuse” (actually, parents who leave their children behind), and other doomsday coverage.
U.S .Spanish-language television’s apparent code of silence also applied to news about Consumer Confidence rising in August to its highest level since October 2000, climbing to 133.4, and to the 0.4% July rise on household spending reported by the Commerce Department on Thursday.
The August 2018 labor statistics ignored by Univision, Telemundo, Estrella TV and Azteca América were as follows:
- Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 201,000.
- Professional and business services added 53,000 jobs and 519,000 jobs over the year.
- Health care employment rose by 33,000, for a total of 301,000 jobs over the year.
- Wholesale trade employment increased by 22,000 and by 99,000 over the year.
- Durable goods wholesalers added 14,000 jobs and accounted for about two-thirds of the over-the-year job gain in wholesale trade.
- Employment in transportation and warehousing rose by 20,000 and by 173,000 over the past 12 months. Within the industry, couriers and messengers added 4,000 jobs in August.
- Mining employment increased by 6,000, after showing little change in July.
- Employment in construction continued to trend higher (up by 23,000) and has increased by 297,000 over the year.
- Manufacturing employment changed little (-3,000). Over the year, employment in the industry was up by 254,000, with more than three-fourths of the gain in the durable goods component.
