Inside the BLS Employment Situation Report
This is my monthly look inside the BLS Employment Situation Report.
- Headline Nonfarm jobs was +227,000.
- Unemployment Rate was unchanged at 8.3% in January 2012
- Average hourly wage $23.31 up from $23.29 in January 2012
- Average work week was 34.5 hours the same as 34.5 in January 2012
- Private jobs were +233,000. Government jobs were -6,000
Reading beneath the surface:
-Good producing jobs were +24,000.
-The size of the civilian labor force rose/fell from 154,395,000 to 154,871,000.
-The labor participation rate (percent of adult non-institutionalized population who are part of the labor force) rose to 63.9% from 63.7%. It was 64.2% a year ago.
According to the 4 week moving average of Initial Jobless Claims 1,420,000 people lost their jobs in the last 4 weeks. That normalizes to 1,538,000 lost jobs in a month (there are about 13 4 week periods in a 12 month year.) This is down from the previous month's 1,637,000 lost jobs/month.
If 1,538,000 people lost their jobs last month and we gained 227,000 jobs, how did that happen? The answers are in the Household Survey.
In February 2012 BLS measured 4 sets of people entering or leaving the jobs market:
- Job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs was 7,209,000 down 112,000 from January's Job Losers and down 1,128,000 from February 2012.
-Job leavers was 1,031,000. This includes anyone who retired or voluntarily left working. This was up 92,000 from previous month and up 127,000 from February 2011.
-Reentrants was 3,361,000. Reentrants are people who were looking for a job a found one. This was +36,000 from previous month and -+7,000 from February 2011.
-New entrants were 1,392,000. These are unemployed persons who never worked before and who are entering the labor force for the first time. This was +139,000 from previous month and +77,000 from February 2011.
In summary: It appears that we are part the worst part of the jobs market cycle. People are not losing their jobs at the same rate as a year ago partly because temps are not getting dismissed at the same rate. However, 84% of the headline gain is only to keep pace with population growth. Considering how far we are into recovery and how much has been spent, I find this data disappointing.
Disappointing or not, I am glad to see your weekly RateWatch back. I have missed reading it, trying to make sense of this complex organism called The Economy of the United States.
Thank you.
Posted by: Matt Penning | April 06, 2012 at 06:33 PM