Further Look at Employment: Seasonally Adujsted Decline of 523,000 Over Last Month

Townhall.com ^ | July 6, 2014 | Mike Shedlock

[Kaslin]

Initial Reaction

On the surface, this appeared to be a very strong jobs report from both the household survey and establishment survey perspective.

The establishment survey reported a gain of 288,000 jobs while the household survey sported a gain in employment of 407,000. In addition, May was revised up from +217,000 to + 224,000, and April revised up from +282,000 to +304,000.

Digging deeper into the details, strength was entirely part-time (and then some).

Voluntary part-time employment rose by a whopping 840,000 and involuntary part-time employment rose by 275,000.

Compared to a total gain of employment of 407,000, the gain in total part-time employment was 1,115,000. I confirmed with the BLS that one cannot directly subtract those numbers because of seasonal reporting.

However, one can compare seasonally-adjusted full-time employment this month to seasonally-adjusted full-time employment last month. Doing so shows a decline in full-time employment of 523,000!

May BLS Jobs Statistics at a Glance

• Nonfarm Payroll: +288,000 - Establishment Survey
• Employment: +407,000 - Household Survey
• Unemployment: -325,000 - Household Survey
• Involuntary Part-Time Work: +275,000 - Household Survey
• Voluntary Part-Time Work: +840,000 - Household Survey
• Baseline Unemployment Rate: -0.2 at 6.1% - Household Survey
• U-6 unemployment: -0.1 to 12.1% - Household Survey
• Civilian Non-institutional Population: +192,000
• Civilian Labor Force: +81,000 - Household Survey
• Not in Labor Force: +111,000 - Household Survey
• Participation Rate: +0.0 at 62.8 - Household Survey

Additional Notes About the Unemployment Rate

• The unemployment rate varies in accordance with the Household Survey, not the reported headline jobs number, and not in accordance with the weekly claims data.
• In the past year the working-age population rose by 2,262,000.
• In the last year the labor force declined by 128,000.
• In the last year, those "not" in the labor force rose by 2,390,000
• Over the course of the last year, the number of people employed rose by 2,146,000 (an average of 178,833 a month)

The working-age population rose by over 2 million, but the labor force declined. People dropping out of the work force accounts for nearly all of the declining unemployment rate.

June 2014 Employment Report

Please consider the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) May 2014 Employment Report.

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 288,000 in June, and the unemployment rate declined to 6.1 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains were widespread, led by employment growth in professional and business services, retail trade, food services and drinking places, and health care.

Click on Any Chart in this Report to See a Sharper Image

Unemployment Rate - Seasonally Adjusted



Nonfarm Employment January 2003 - June 2014



click on chart for sharper image

Nonfarm Employment Change from Previous Month by Job Type



Hours and Wages

Average weekly hours of all private employees has been flat for four months at 34.5 hours. Average weekly hours of all private service-providing employees was flat at 33.3 hours.

Average hourly earnings of private workers rose $0.04 to $20.58. Average hourly earnings of private service-providing employees rose $0.03 to $20.36.

For discussion of income distribution, please see What's "Really" Behind Gross Inequalities In Income Distribution?

Birth Death Model

Starting January, I dropped the Birth/Death Model charts from this report. For those who follow the numbers, I keep this caution: Do not subtract the reported Birth-Death number from the reported headline number. That approach is statistically invalid. Should anything interesting arise in the Birth/Death numbers, I will add the charts back.

Table 15 BLS Alternate Measures of Unemployment



click on chart for sharper image

Table A-15 is where one can find a better approximation of what the unemployment rate really is.

Notice I said "better" approximation not to be confused with "good" approximation.

The official unemployment rate is 6.1%. However, if you start counting all the people who want a job but gave up, all the people with part-time jobs that want a full-time job, all the people who dropped off the unemployment rolls because their unemployment benefits ran out, etc., you get a closer picture of what the unemployment rate is. That number is in the last row labeled U-6.

U-6 is much higher at 12.1%. Both numbers would be way higher still, were it not for millions dropping out of the labor force over the past few years.

Labor Force Factors

1. Discouraged workers stop looking for jobs
2. People retire because they cannot find jobs
3. People go back to school hoping it will improve their chances of getting a job
4. People stay in school longer because they cannot find a job
5. Disability and disability fraud

Were it not for people dropping out of the labor force over the past several years, the unemployment rate would be well over 9%.

[Jim Robinson]

Totally unexpected. /s

[TwelveOfTwenty]

When unemployment was 4.5% in November 2006, Americans allowed the MSM to con them into voting Democrat. Will Americans allow the MSM to continue to con them into voting Democrat, even as their full time jobs are replaced with part time jobs and more of their incomes are given to the takers?

[Cringing Negativism Network]

Both of our major political parties are selling out American workers.

Bring back American jobs.

AMERICAN jobs.

[Wuli]

The key factoid: “People dropping out of the work force accounts for nearly all of the declining unemployment rate.”

The socialists cheered (more sheeple for the government plantation society), AND Wall Street cheered (less wage increase pressure and more people foisted off private-enterprise payrolls and onto various doles which are predominately supported by direct personal tax levies and totally supported by all taxes paid by individuals including the corporate taxes passed on to individuals in the prices of goods and services).

[CodeToad]

The BLS simply does a phone survey, which is highly susceptible to political manipulations, while they could look at unemployment insurance payments and IRS filing for accurate data.

[Kaslin]

Naturally

[Kaslin]

No it wasn't all Americans as you imply. there was nothing wrong with the economy as it was flourishing and with 4.6% unemployment was practically nonexistent. It was those who wanted to teach the GOP a lesson by sitting home or voting third party, and what did it get us? Unemployment began to rise, and gas prices went up. Thanks to the rats.

Sadly there are some now that want to make the same mistake again

[TwelveOfTwenty]

No it wasn't all Americans as you imply.

OK, not all Americans, but Americans as a group.

It was those who wanted to teach the GOP a lesson by sitting home or voting third party, and what did it get us? Unemployment began to rise, and gas prices went up. Thanks to the rats.

Most Americans didn't see it that way, allowed the MSM to con them into blaming Bush, and voted for MORE Democrats in 2008.

Sadly there are some now that want to make the same mistake again

The fact that they made it easier for the greater evil to win by not voting for the lesser evil is lost on them.

[Kaslin]

Being that you signed up in October of 2008 you wasn’t here during the 2006 campaign. I do remember hundreds if not thousands of posts of many Freepers raging that they wanted to teach the GOP a lesson

[TwelveOfTwenty]

I was lurking here long before I got the nerve to sign up, and I remember that said here and elsewhere.

[4Liberty]

This entire piece is racist.

[Toddsterpatriot]

Bring back American jobs.

How?

[painter]

BUMP

[george76]

1 in 6 American Men Between Ages 25-54 Are Not Working.

And over 100 million Adults not working.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3124741/posts

Guess the real Unemployment rate.

[Grampa Dave]

“Voluntary part-time employment rose by a whopping 840,000 and involuntary part-time employment rose by 275,000.

Compared to a total gain of employment of 407,000, the gain in total part-time employment was 1,115,000. I confirmed with the BLS that one cannot directly subtract those numbers because of seasonal reporting.

However, one can compare seasonally-adjusted full-time employment this month to seasonally-adjusted full-time employment last month. Doing so shows a decline in full-time employment of 523,000!”

---

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.

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

[UCANSEE2]

This entire piece is racist.

And sexist.