What "Rosy" Job Numbers? Wal-Mart CEO Slams Recovery Mirage

Zero Hedge ^ | 07/08/2014 | Tyler Durden

[SeekAndFind]

When the CEO of the world's biggest company doubts the veracity of US economic data, you know you have a problem. After quarters of disappointing growth in the face of miraculous equity market performance; Wal-Mart CEO Bill Simon warns that shoppers aren’t returning at the pace one might expect years after the recession peaked, despite mainstream media interpretation of the data showing unequivocal growth. Simply put, he exclaims, "the unemployment numbers particularly have been difficult to read with the number of people dropping out of the work force," adding that if we see a further drop in the participation rate it would fit with the fact that "middle-class and lower-class are still economically challenged, only spending during holidays and for family occasions," adding that traction has only come at the top-end.

 

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CNBC: "The US unemployment rate fell 6.1%. but walmart sales and traffic has been pretty sluggish. what's going on? where's the disconnect?"

Wal-Mart CEO: "I think the economic numbers - unemployment numbers particularly have been difficult to read with the number of people dropping out of the work force - and I think it's going to take a while - six months or a year - for those numbers to balance out. You'll see drop in the rate, and then - as more people come back into the workforce - that might change again. Hopefully after six years we start to gain traction in the US. That traction is coming at the top end but I think the middle down is pretty challenged.

CNBC "Is that the problem with sales, your consumers don't have as much disposable income to spend?"

Wal-Mart CEO: "Yes - Retail in general has not been robust in the last six years, in the last year particularly."

*  *  *

“This is obviously an economic problem,” said Gina Sanchez, founder of Chantico Global. “Wal-Mart is a big bellwether, so it’s worth looking at to understand what’s happening.”

*  *  *

This is not a tin-foil-hat-wearing blogger or ranting Chicagoan (or former GE chairman) - this is the current CEO of the world's largest revenue-producing firm casting doubt on the reality of the jobs picture the government is painting and furthermore confirming things are anything but back to normal...

[DonaldC]

Illegal spending down ping.

[FlingWingFlyer]

I heard some idiot on the radio say yesterday that there all lots of jobs out there because the people who had those jobs got “better” jobs. Yeah! That makes sense! LOL!

[I want the USA back]

There is no recovery. There are no jobs. Those who have jobs are working at a fraction of their capacity, and making much less than they are worth.

[SeekAndFind]

[MrB]

Socialists would RATHER have 1.5 part time jobs “created” for every full time job they destroy.

[kabar]

Yet we continue to bring in 1.1 million LEGAL IMMIGRANTS ANNUALLY along with 640,000 guest workers each year. You think that this might have some impact on the participation rate? Duh.

[Chgogal]

Circumstantial evidence Ping-a-Ling. ; )

[DonaldC]

There are lots of jobs if you can make it on 8-11 per hour and have a couple of them.

[Chgogal]

Soon or later the full time vs. part time jobs stats will become more apparent to Wall Street.

[Grampa Dave]

Dang!

There you go again using real math instead of the semi new math.

“Yet we continue to bring in 1.1 million LEGAL IMMIGRANTS ANNUALLY along with 640,000 guest workers each year. You think that this might have some impact on the participation rate? Duh.”

[Grampa Dave]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3151710/posts

Unemployment Drops to 0% as Last Worker Leaves Labor Force
The People’s Cube ^ | May 3, 2014 | Opiate of the People Posted by 4Liberty

Comrade Barack Obama today became the first to achieve a milestone coveted by enlightened central planners everywhere when the Bureau of Laborious Statistics announced the much-followed totally-meaningless “headline” U3 unemployment rate for last month was ZERO PERCENT! This means that the glorious economic recovery he engineered after the disastrous Bush years has now attained FULL EMPLOYMENT!

It is a tribute to Professor Obama that he was able to find the Holy Grail which eluded history’s greatest economic thinkers such as Lenin, Stalin and Mao. This landmark achievement along with his establishment of free healthcare for everyone via the Affordable Care Act cements his reputation as the Greatest Leader in this or any other universe for all time.

The dramatic moment occurred at 12:03 PM, four weeks to the day after Lyman Yilk, a pipe-fitter from Bittcling, Pa, finally gave up looking for work. Mr. Yilk has been unemployed since 2005 but was on a celebratory bender since the day after Mr. Obama’s first election and did not know that the Keystone Pipeline (which Mr. Yilk was hoping to find work on) had been cancelled due to environmental concerns. When he finally sobered up four weeks ago and learned the project was dead, he abandoned his search to find a job.

Mr. Yilk was the last worker to leave the labor force and turned the lights out as he left. According to the BLS definition:

Quote: U3: Official unemployment rate per the ILO definition occurs when people are without jobs and they have actively looked for work within the past four weeks. Without Mr. Yilk, there was no one actively looking for work any longer, hence the U3 rate was now ZERO PERCENT, praise Obama!

Gloom-and-doom naysayers were quick to note that the labor force participation rate had also dropped to zero percent which (according to them) was not a good thing as it meant no one was employed. Comrade Nancy Pelosi countered their racist, straw-man argument brilliantly by observing that it also meant no comrade was any longer “job-locked” and each was free to be an artist, writer, hooker, etc, and pursue their passion.

“There is no underestimating this tremendous achievement of Barack Obama” said Paul Klugeman, an expert on hiding declines and fudging economic statistics as well being the self-proclaimed “Conscious Liberal”. “Comrade Obama has achieved the socialist dream of freeing all of The People ™ from the slavery of work and permitting them to live off of someone else’s dime as god, if he existed, would’ve wanted.”

Dr. Klugeman was asked if a problem would arise due to the fact that since no one was working, there would also be no one to pay for the benefits that all the non-workers were collecting.

“Nonsense”, he proclaimed. “The Fed will simply print money for artists and writers and hookers to use to buy things from China! What could go wrong?”

It seems so simple now, it’s a wonder no one ever thought of it sooner.

“The genius of Dear Leader Barack Obama lies in his simplicity”, said Dr. Klugeman.

We agree.

[george76]

More Businesses Shutting Down than Starting Up.

Business deaths now exceed business births for the first time since 1978.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/more-businesses-shutting-down-starting_791127.html#.U2t2fEi_48E.twitter

[kabar]

I don’t understand your comments re what I stated. Could you expand on what you mean?

[DonaldC]

Just like the stats are saying, there a plenty of jobs in the part time, $8-11 range. Not enough to support a family, but I don’t know of any college age younguns going without work if they want it. As for illegals and such, employers of them are not looking at citizen labor anyway and why should they. If caught, they get a slap on the wrist and go off and do it again. A lot of the work illegals do, citizens may or may not do it for the same money, but won’t under the table as illegals do. Thus, I’m not sure given that that swarms of illegals are impacting overall employment. Now once made legals, then there will be a push to get more illegals and that will impact today’s citizens.

[kabar]

Just like the stats are saying, there a plenty of jobs in the part time, $8-11 range. Not enough to support a family, but I don’t know of any college age younguns going without work if they want it.

Plenty of jobs? You must be joking. The data portray a much different picture.

All Employment Growth Since 2000 Went to Immigrants Number of U.S.-born not working grew by 17 million

Three conclusions can be drawn from this analysis:

First, the long-term decline in the employment for natives across age and education levels is a clear indication that there is no general labor shortage, which is a primary justification for the large increases in immigration (skilled and unskilled) in the Schumer-Rubio bill and similar House proposals.

Second, the decline in work among the native-born over the last 14 years of high immigration is consistent with research showing that immigration reduces employment for natives.

Third, the trends since 2000 challenge the argument that immigration on balance increases job opportunities for natives. Over 17 million immigrants arrived in the country in the last 14 years, yet native employment has deteriorated significantly.

Thus, I’m not sure given that that swarms of illegals are impacting overall employment. Now once made legals, then there will be a push to get more illegals and that will impact today’s citizens.

We are bringing in 1.1 million legal immigrants a year along with 640,000 guest workers annually. There is no correlation between our job needs and legal immigration let alone the impact of illegal aliens.

[Sam Gamgee]

CNBC doesn’t want to hear the truth as they are complicit with the fake “recovery” story that underpins markets at insance PE ratios. Seeing the NASQAQ, the poster boy for bubbles nearing its old highs has my head spinning.

[expat_panama]

...full time vs. part time jobs stats will become more apparent to Wall Street...

Tx fer the heads-up.  Percent fulltime/total employment is up a percent since 2010 and indexes have doubled --but even though the % fulltime has come up so much it's still not that much higher than it was in '94 when indexes tripled in just six years.

[Chgogal]

How does FRED define “usually” in the title “Employed, Usually Full Time/Civilian Employment * 100”? And what does that mean?

The way I am interpreting "usually", FRED is counting anyone who is working, period. They are not differentiating between part time and full time. Is that correct?

[Wyatt's Torch]

From BLS Footnotes:

Footnotes
(1) Employed full-time workers are persons who usually work 35 hours or more

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t09.htm