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mahatmakanejeeves

(56,895 posts)
Fri Oct 7, 2016, 08:31 AM Oct 2016

Payroll employment increases by 156,000 in September; unemployment rate little changed...

Last edited Fri Oct 7, 2016, 11:57 AM - Edit history (4)

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Economic News Release USDL-16-1961

Employment Situation Summary

Transmission of material in this release is embargoed until 8:30 a.m. (EDT) Friday, October 7, 2016

Technical information:
Household data: (202) 691-6378 * [email protected] * www.bls.gov/cps
Establishment data: (202) 691-6555 * [email protected] * www.bls.gov/ces

Media contact: (202) 691-5902 * [email protected]

THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION -- SEPTEMBER 2016


Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 156,000 in September, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 5.0 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment gains occurred in professional and business services and in health care.

Household Survey Data

The unemployment rate, at 5.0 percent, and the number of unemployed persons, at 7.9 million, changed little in September. Both measures have shown little movement, on net, since August of last year. (See table A-1.)
....

The number of persons unemployed less than 5 weeks increased by 284,000 to 2.6 million in September. The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was essentially unchanged at 2.0 million and accounted for 24.9 percent of the unemployed. (See table A-12.)

In September, both the labor force participation rate, at 62.9 percent, and the employment-population ratio, at 59.8 percent, changed little. (See table A-1.)

The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was little changed in September at 5.9 million. These individuals, who would have preferred full-time employment, were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job. (See table A-8.)

In September, 1.8 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force, about unchanged from a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. (See table A-16.)

Among the marginally attached, there were 553,000 discouraged workers in September, little changed from a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them. The remaining 1.3 million persons marginally attached to the labor force in September had not searched for work for reasons such as school attendance or family responsibilities. (See table A-16.)

Establishment Survey Data

Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 156,000 in September. Thus far this year, job growth has averaged 178,000 per month, compared with an average of 229,000 per month in 2015. In September, employment gains occurred in professional and business services and in health care. (See table B-1.)
....

In September, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 6 cents to $25.79. Over the year, average hourly earnings have risen by 2.6 percent. Average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees increased by 5 cents to $21.68 in September. (See tables B-3 and B-8.)

The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for July was revised down from +275,000 to +252,000, and the change for August was revised up from +151,000 to +167,000. With these revisions, employment gains in July and August combined were 7,000 less than previously reported. Over the past 3 months, job gains have averaged 192,000 per month.

_____________
The Employment Situation for October is scheduled to be released on Friday, November 4, 2016, at 8:30 a.m. (EDT).

Read more: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm



[font color="red"]These will be (or should be) the talking points:

1) A gain of 156,000 is almost exactly in line with Wednesday's estimate by ADP® of a gain of 154,000 jobs. It is below estimates earlier this week and in this mornings TWSJ. of a gain of 170,000 and earlier this week of a gain of 177,000.1,2,3 The actual gain is below what had been expected, so there's less pressure for an interest rate increase when the Federal Reserve meets later.;
2) "In September, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 6 cents to $25.79. Over the year, average hourly earnings have risen by 2.6 percent. Average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees increased by 5 cents to $21.68 in September." ;
3) "The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for July was revised down from +275,000 to +252,000, and the change for August was revised up from +151,000 to +167,000. With these revisions, employment gains in July and August combined were 7,000 less than previously reported. Over the past 3 months, job gains have averaged 192,000 per month." ;
4) "In September, both the labor force participation rate, at 62.9 percent, and the employment-population ratio, at 59.8 percent, changed little."4 ;
5) The civilian noninstitutional population not in the labor force went from 94,391,000 in August to 94,184,000 in September, a decrease of 207,000.5 ;
6) The number of "{persons not in the labor force} who currently want a job" is 6,088,000. Therefore, the percentage of those not in the labor force who want a job now is (6,088,000/94,184,000) times 100%, or 6.5%.6 ; and
7) "The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for July was revised down from +275,000 to +252,000, and the change for August was revised up from +151,000 to +167,000. With these revisions, employment gains in July and August combined were 7,000 less than previously reported. Over the past 3 months, job gains have averaged 192,000 per month."[/font]

1ADP Private Payrolls Rise 154,000 in September

2Jobs Report: Everything You Need to Know

3I heard the first estimate for September's report.

4 I've added mention of the employment-population ratio, aka the employment to population ratio, as progree argues that it is more worthy of attention than the labor force participation rate (LFPR). See: Over the past month, over the past year, and since February 2010

5 The datum "civilian noninstitutional population not in the labor force" is in Table A-1. It's also at Not in Labor Force. (Hat tip, progree: Only 6.3% of those 94 million "unemployed" people want a job now.) Some people make a big deal out of this number, so to keep them happy, here it is.

6 The figure is also found in or derived from Table A-1. Once again, I'm indebted to progree for pointing out the significance of these data: Only 6.3% of those 94 million "unemployed" people want a job now).


[center]Facilities for Sensory Impaired[/center]

Information from this release will be made available to sensory impaired individuals upon request. Voice phone: 202-691-5200, Federal Relay Services: 1-800-877-8339.


[center]Introduction[/center]

Good morning, Freepers and DUers alike. I especially welcome our good friends from across the aisle. You're paying for this information too, so I am absolutely delighted to have you participate in this thread. Please, everyone, put aside your differences long enough to digest the information. After that, you can engage in your usual donnybrook.

Full disclosure: I do not work for BLS, nor am I friends with anyone over there. I'm just someone who appreciates the work they do. My sole connection with the agency is that I've been in the building to pick up some publications.

Thank you for being a part of this thread.

If you don't have the time to study the report thoroughly, here is the news in a nutshell:

Commissioner's Statement on The Employment Situation

It is easy to find one paragraph, or one sentence, or one datum in this report that will support the most outlandish of conclusions, from "the sky is falling" to "we'll have blue skies, nothing but blue skies, from now on." Easy, but disingenuous.

Every month, you can find something in the report that will cause you concern. Take the information in context. Consider not just this month’s data, but the trend.

Please take the time to look at progree's not-to-be-missed thread containing his thoughtful analysis, updated monthly. Here is the latest version:

Economy facts with links to official sources, rev 10/7/16.

This month, he also presented his analysis in the thirteenth reply in this thread:

Over the past month, over the past year, and since February 2010

Thank you so much for that, progree.

Let's begin with a couple of questions:


[center]What Is the Bureau of Labor Statistics?
Why Does It Release All These Numbers Every Month?
[/center]

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is a unit of the United States Department of Labor. It is the principal fact-finding agency for the U.S. government in the broad field of labor economics and statistics and serves as a principal agency of the U.S. Federal Statistical System. The BLS is a governmental statistical agency that collects, processes, analyzes, and disseminates essential statistical data to the American public, the U.S. Congress, other Federal agencies, State and local governments, business, and labor representatives. The BLS also serves as a statistical resource to the Department of Labor, and conducts research into how much families need to earn to be able to enjoy a decent standard of living.

The BLS data must satisfy a number of criteria, including relevance to current social and economic issues, timeliness in reflecting today’s rapidly changing economic conditions, accuracy and consistently high statistical quality, and impartiality in both subject matter and presentation. To avoid the appearance of partiality, the dates of major data releases are scheduled more than a year in advance, in coordination with the Office of Management and Budget.

[font color="red"]New material, added August 29, 2016:[/font] Print title, Washington Post, Saturday, March 10, 2012, front page, above the fold: "Watching the clock: Monthly data release is an economic, political obsession timed to the nanosecond"

‘Jobs Day’: Monthly release of employment data an economic, political obsession

By Eli Saslow
http://twitter.com/elisaslow

March 9, 2012

The release of employment numbers by the Bureau of Labor Statistics has long been a ritual in Washington, but lately it has turned into an obsession during an election year defined by economic instability. Once each month, a nondescript government agency compiles and releases 24 tables of economic data that have come to define the 2012 election and so much else. Republican presidential candidates turn the numbers into speeches. The president’s staff monitors how they affect his approval rating. The Federal Reserve reevaluates interest rates. Investors prepare for the stock market to rise or fall, sometimes swinging in value by $150 billion in the minutes after the report is released.
....

The raw data had arrived at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), like always, on Wednesday the week before the report’s release: millions of characters representing survey information from 55,000 households; and then, a few days later, monthly payroll data from 486,000 businesses. Kosanovich’s boss posted a two-page schedule on the office wall, detailing the tasks ahead for a team of more than 20 economists. They would be required to make a series of six deadlines. Their work would undergo 15 fact checks and then 15 clearance reviews. They would sit together in a windowless conference room and read aloud from their eventual creation, a three-page news release and 24 data tables, debating commas and verbs for hours on end.

They would do it all with absolute discretion during an eight-day security lockdown, signing confidentiality agreements each morning, encrypting their computers and locking data into a safe every time they walked 10 yards away to use a bathroom. “Is your workstation secure?” asked a sign in the hallway. They all remembered the last security miscue, in November 2008 — the accidental transmission of some data to one wire service a full 25 seconds before the report’s scheduled release, an incident that had necessitated a series of internal investigations and revisions.

“We always tape paper over the windows of the conference room or draw the shades,” Kosanovich said about her typical routine during a lockdown. She made a habit of refraining from answering phone calls or e-mails from unknown numbers and never discussing data outside her office. For eight days, nobody visited her team’s floor at BLS without a security clearance. The custodial staff did not empty their trash until the report was released.
....


[center]Household Survey vs. Establishment Survey[/center]

From the February 10, 2011, DOL Newsletter:

Take Three

Secretary Solis answers three questions about how the Bureau of Labor Statistics calculates unemployment rates.

How does BLS determine the unemployment rate and the number of jobs that were added each month?

BLS uses two different surveys to get these numbers. The household survey, or Current Population Survey (CPS), involves asking people, from about 60,000 households, a series of questions to assess each person in the household's activities including work and searching for work. Their responses give us the unemployment rate. The establishment survey, or Current Employment Statistics (CES), surveys 140,000 employers about how many people they have on their payrolls. These results determine the number of jobs being added or lost.


[center]Complaint Department[/center]

I post this information on a nonpartisan basis. I am not here to make elected officials of any party or persuasion look good. I am certain that the people who compile these data are of the same outlook. They are civil servants. They do not work for a party; they work for you, the American people.

My only contribution is to cut and paste a few paragraphs from the BLS and then, in the commentary, link to some sources that I feel are trustworthy. I hope people come away with a better understanding of the data after reading this thread. Once again, I do not work for BLS, but I will nonetheless try to assist if I can.

If you feel the Bureau of Labor Statistics is handing out bunk, start here:

Point of Contact for Complaints Concerning Information Quality

Affected persons who believe that the Bureau of Labor Statistics has disseminated information that does not meet its guidelines or those of the Department of Labor or Office of Management and Budget, and who wish to file a formal complaint may send their complaint by mail, e-mail, or fax to:

Division of Management Systems
Bureau of Labor Statistics
U.S. Department of Labor
2 Massachusetts Avenue, N.E., Room 4080
Washington, D.C., 20212-0001
E-mail: [email protected]
Fax: (202) 691-5111

Complainants should:

Identify themselves and indicate where and how they can be reached;
Identify, as specifically as possible, the information in question;
Indicate how they are affected by the information about which they are complaining;
Carefully describe the nature of the complaint, including an explanation of why they believe the information does not comply with OMB, Departmental, or agency-specific guidelines; and
Describe the change requested and the reason why the agency should make the change.

Failure to include this information may result in a complainant not receiving a response to the complaint or greatly reducing the usefulness or timeliness of any response. Complainants should be aware that they bear the burden of establishing that they are affected persons and showing the need and justification for the correction they are seeking, including why the information being complained about does not comply with applicable guidelines.


[center]We Got the Beat.[/center]

TWSJ.'s MoneyBeat blog is pay-per-view if you try direct access. That's the first time I've see that. Go in through Google News to beat the paywall.

Jobs Report: Everything You Need to Know

By WSJ Staff

Oct 7, 2016 8:08 am ET

Yes, it’s that time again, folks. Jobs Friday, when for one ever-so-brief moment the interests of Wall Street, Washington and Main Street are all aligned on one thing: jobs.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics is expected to report that the economy added 170,000 jobs in September, with the unemployment rate flat at 4.9%. In August, the economy added 151,000.

Here at MoneyBeat HQ, we will crunch the numbers, track the markets and compile the commentary before and after the data crosses the wires. Feel free to continue the conversation in the comments section. And while you’re here, why don’t you
sign up to follow us on Twitter.

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

You forgot to say "Enjoy the show."

Before we do anything else, let's give credit to the workers behind the MoneyBeat blog:

The MoneyBeat Team:

Stephen Grocer
Editor

Phillipa Leighton-Jones
European Editor

Erik Holm
Deputy Editor

Maureen Farrell
Reporter, New York

Paul Vigna
Reporter, New York

David Cottle
Reporter, London

Kristen Scholer
Reporter, New York

Giles Turner
Reporter, London

MoneyBeat Columnists

Ronald Barusch
Dealpolitik

[font color="red"]off this assignment:
Francesco Guerrera
Current Account
[/font]

[font color="red"]off this assignment:
Alen Mattich[/font]

Jason Zweig
The Intelligent Investor

[font color="red"]off this assignment:
Michael J. Casey
Horizons
[/font]

E. S. Browning

From the comments:

8:35 am

July revised lower, August revised higher

As for the revisions, July was revised down, and August was revised up.

July was revised to 252,000 from 275,000, and August was revised to 167,000 from 151,000.

It’s essentially a wash, a net revision down of 7,000 jobs.

by Paul Vigna

8:34 am

Markets turn up

A below-consensus number means slightly lower odds of a rate increase before December. That’s good news for risk assets.

S&P 500 and Dow industrials futures, which were both down ahead of the report, turned positive. Both are up 0.2%.

Crude oil, which was down is now up 0.1%.

Gold is also climbing sharply, up 0.8% on the day, versus a 0.2% rise before the report.

The yield on the 10-year Treasury note cut its rise. It’s now at 1.75%.

by Ben Eisen

The September Jobs Report by the Numbers

8:43 am EST Oct 7, 2016

By Ben Leubsdorf

American employers continued to add jobs at a modest pace last month, the Labor Department said Friday. It was the 72nd consecutive month that total nonfarm payrolls rose, marking six full years of continuous job creation in the wake of the 2007-09 recession. The highly anticipated September jobs report was released roughly a month before Election Day and could reverberate in the ongoing campaigns for control of the White House and Congress. Here are the details from Friday’s report.

U.S. Added 156,000 Jobs in September; Jobless Rate Rose to 5%


[center]How Do You Define Unemployment?
The Large Print Giveth, and the Fine Print Taketh Away.
[/center]

Long ago, a DUer pointed out that, if I'm going to post the link to the press release, I should include the link to all the tables that provide additional ways of examining the data. Specifically, I should post a link to Table A-15. Alternative measures of labor underutilization. Table A-15 includes those who are not considered unemployed, on the grounds that they have become discouraged about the prospects of finding a job and have given up looking. Here is that link:

Table A-15. Alternative measures of labor underutilization

Also, hat tip, Recursion: How the Government Measures Unemployment

[font color="red"]New material, added August 8, 2016:[/font]

This appeared at the top of page A2 in the Wednesday, July 27, 2016, print edition of The Wall Street Journal. as "Jobless Picture is Open to Interpretation."

Jobless Picture is Open to Interpretation

Gauges used to measure unemployment vary in how they define who is out of work {print: "Political campaigns clash over different ways of measuring unemployment"}



By Josh Zumbrun
[email protected]
http://twitter.com/JoshZumbrun

July 26, 2016 7:56 p.m. ET

Because political campaigns can rise and fall on the health of the economy, spats often flare over the gauges used to measure growth and unemployment.

The latest dust-up, raised by the campaign of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, focuses on the monthly employment numbers. A long streak of hiring has nudged the jobless rate down to 4.9%. ... Donald Trump Jr., the nominee’s son, recently criticized the official statistics as “artificial numbers…massaged to make the existing economy look good.”

The nominee himself has said unemployment is far higher than the Labor Department’s headline 4.9% rate would suggest, part of his message that the economy is in a dire state. After he won the New Hampshire primary in February, Mr. Trump called the official jobless figures “phony” and said the real number could be as high as 42%.

This isn’t the first time people have cast aspersions on the jobs numbers in an election year, but the Trump claim is also part of a larger discussion over how best to assess the health of the labor market.

The following link to Barron's might not work for everyone. See progree's tips.[/font] From the July 20, 2015, issue of Barron's:

Refresher Course: Inside the Jobless Numbers

Are we undercounting the unemployment numbers—or overcounting? How the BLS gathers and calculates the numbers, and why it matters.

By Gene Epstein
July 18, 2015

The unemployment rate has never been the object of as much attention from the markets and the media as it is now, sparked by the keen interest taken in its monthly fluctuations by policy makers at the Federal Reserve.

Despite the heightened focus, there are a lot of misunderstandings and misconceptions about how the rate is calculated. Some people assume the Bureau of Labor Statistics compiles the rate from the unemployment-insurance rolls. On that basis, they fault the BLS for undercounting the unemployed. But that’s just one myth among many about this cornerstone measure of economic pain and labor-market slack.

To estimate the unemployment rate, the BLS actually relies on the monthly Current Population Survey conducted for it by the Census Bureau. While the data are highly imperfect in their own way, we think the Federal Reserve is right to view the official unemployment rate as the best available information, while also keeping its eye on ancillary measures of “labor underutilization.”

In fact, a close look at BLS methods suggests that, if anything, the official unemployment rate may be overcounting rather than undercounting the unemployed.


[font color="red"]New material:[/font] In August 2015, DUers whatthehey and progree got into a 1995 report from economists John E. Bregger and Steven E. Haugen. The .pdf is unfortunately an image and thus challenging as a source of quotes. Trying to find it in a format that does make for easy copying, I was led to this:

Alternative Unemployment Rates: Their Meaning and Their Measure March 12, 2014


[center]Past Performance is Not a Guarantee of Future Results.[/center]

Nonetheless, what is important is not this month's results, but the trend. Let’s look at some earlier numbers:

ADP® (Automatic Data Processing), for employment in August 2016:

ADP National Employment Report: Private Sector Employment Increased by 177,000 Jobs in August

Bureau of Labor Statistics, for employment in July 2016:

Payroll employment increases by 255,000 in July; unemployment rate unchanged at 4.9%

ADP® (Automatic Data Processing), for employment in July 2016:

ADP National Employment Report: Private Sector Employment Increased by 179,000 Jobs in July

Bureau of Labor Statistics, for employment in June 2016:

Payroll employment increases by 287,000 in June; unemployment rate rises to 4.9%

ADP® (Automatic Data Processing), for employment in June 2016:

ADP National Employment Report: Private Sector Employment Increased by 172,000 Jobs in June

Bureau of Labor Statistics, for employment in May 2016:

Unemployment rate declines to 4.7% in May; payroll employment changes little (+38,000)

ADP® (Automatic Data Processing), for employment in May 2016:

ADP National Employment Report: Private Sector Employment Increased by 173,000 Jobs in May

Bureau of Labor Statistics, for employment in April 2016:

Payroll employment increases by 160,000 in April; unemployment rate unchanged at 5.0%

ADP® (Automatic Data Processing), for employment in April 2016:

ADP National Employment Report: Private Sector Employment Increased by 156,000 Jobs in April

Bureau of Labor Statistics, for employment in March 2016:

Payroll employment rises by 215,000 in March; unemployment rate little changed at 5.0%

ADP® (Automatic Data Processing), for employment in March 2016:

ADP National Employment Report: Private Sector Employment Increased by 156,000 Jobs in April

Bureau of Labor Statistics, for employment in February 2016:

Payroll employment rises by 215,000 in March; unemployment rate little changed at 5.0%

ADP® (Automatic Data Processing), for employment in March 2016:

ADP National Employment Report: Private Sector Employment Increased by 200,000 Jobs in March

Bureau of Labor Statistics, for employment in February 2016:

Payroll employment rises by 242,000 in February; unemployment rate unchanged at 4.9%

ADP® (Automatic Data Processing), for employment in February 2016:

ADP National Employment Report: Private Sector Employment Increased by 214,000 Jobs in February


[center]Why Won't You Talk About the Labor Force Participation Rate (LFPR)?[/center]

Every month in certain circles, someone will cite the labor force participation rate as a cause for concern. Let's look at that right now.

[font color="red"]New material, added September 30, 2016:[/font]

September 2016

Labor force participation: what has happened since the peak?

The labor force participation rate is the percentage of the civilian noninstitutional population 16 years and older that is working or actively looking for work. It is an important labor market measure because it represents the relative amount of labor resources available for the production of goods and services. After rising for more than three decades, the overall labor force participation rate peaked in early 2000 and subsequently trended down. In recent years, the movement of the baby-boom population into age groups that generally exhibit low labor force participation has contributed to the decline in the overall participation rate. From 2000 to 2015, most of the major demographic groups saw a decrease in labor force participation. Teenagers experienced the largest drop in participation, which coincided with a rise in their school enrollment rate. Young adults 20 to 24 years also showed a decline in labor force participation, but the decrease was not as steep as that for teenagers. The labor force participation rate of women 25 to 54 years also fell, with the decrease more pronounced for women who did not attend college. The labor force participation rate of men 25 to 54 years continued its long-term decline. As in the past, the decrease in participation among men with less education was greater than that of men with more education. However, labor force participation rates of men and women 55 years and older rose from 2000 to 2009 and subsequently leveled off.

[font color="red"]New material, added July 31, 2016:[/font]

Title in the print edition of the Washington Post, page A17, Wednesday, July 27, 2016: "The unemployment-rate 'conspiracy' that isn't"

A popular conspiracy theory is spreading in the Trump family. It’s totally false.

By Matt O'Brien July 26
[email protected]
@ObsoleteDogma

The unemployment rate is not a conspiracy. It is not manipulated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And anyone who suggests otherwise is either uninformed, or trying to misinform others.

Which is to say that you shouldn't listen to Donald Trump & Co. For a year now, the alleged billionaire has insisted that the "real" unemployment rate is something like 42 percent instead of the 4.9 percent it actually is. He hasn't said how he's gotten this — maybe it's from the same "extremely credible source" who told him President Obama's birth certificate was fake? — but the simplest explanation is that he's just ballparking how many adults don't work. That's 40.4 percent right now. The problem with using that number, though, is that it counts college students and stay-at-home parents and retirees as being equally "unemployed" as people who are actively looking for work but can't find any. So it doesn't tell us too much, at least not on its own, unless you think it's a problem that we have more 70-year-olds than we used to.

Or unless conspiracy theories are one of your favorite accessories, as seems to be the case with the father, and now the son, Donald Trump Jr. On Sunday, he told CNN's Jake Tapper that the official unemployment numbers are "artificial" ones that are "massaged to make the existing economy look good" and "this administration look good."
....



Source: BLS

....
The boring truth is that the economy is in a lot better shape than it was when Obama took office, but that it could be in better shape still. The recovery, in other words, still has a ways to go. But that's a lot different from saying that we have 40 percent unemployment and that the government is trying to cover it up. That just suggests you don't understand — or don't want to accurately describe — how stats work and you don't know how to look up the ones you think the BLS is hiding. ... It's not what you'd expect from a major party presidential candidate.

[font color="red"]New material, added June 27, 2016:[/font]

Wonkblog

[link:https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/06/20/why-americas-men-arent-working/|
Why America’s men aren’t working]

By Ylan Q. Mui June 20

The national unemployment rate has fallen by more than half since the nation emerged from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. It peaked at 10 percent in 2010 and stood at just 4.7 percent last month.

That’s mostly good news: Private employers have added more than 14 million jobs. About 2 million people have been out of a job for six months or longer, far too many but only about a quarter of the number of long-term unemployed people seven years ago. By almost every measure, the labor market has made incredible progress.

But there’s one statistic that has been vexing economists. The size of the nation’s workforce -- known as the labor force participation rate -- continues to fall. Since the start of the downturn, the percentage of that population that has a job or is looking for one has dropped more than 3 percentage points, to 62.6 percent, a level not seen since the 1970s.

{America’s jobs market has had a great 2016. Will it last?}

The problem is particularly pronounced among men between the ages of 25 and 54, traditionally considered the prime working years. Their participation rate has been declining for decades, but the drop-off accelerated during the recession. The high mark was 98 percent in 1954, and it now stands at 88 percent. A new analysis from the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers, slated for release Monday, found that the United States now has the third-lowest participation rate for “prime-age men” among the world’s developed countries.
....



....
People in prison are not counted as part of the population for the purposes of labor market statistics. At first blush, that would actually boost the participation rate: A smaller population means the share in the workforce is larger. But in reality, there are immense and well-documented barriers to the job market for workers once they leave prison. And the gloomy prospects of the formerly incarcerated outweigh the statistical benefit of having a large prison population.



....
Ylan Q. Mui is a financial reporter at The Washington Post covering the Federal Reserve and the economy. Follow @ylanmui

[font color="red"]New material, added January 2016:[/font] People who are not in the labor force: why aren't they working?

Beyond the Numbers

December 2015 | Vol. 4 / No. 15

EMPLOYMENT & UNEMPLOYMENT

People who are not in the labor force: why aren't they working?

By Steven F. Hipple

People who are neither working nor looking for work are counted as “not in the labor force,” according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Since 2000, the percentage of people in this group has increased. Data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) and its Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC) provide some insight into why people are not in the labor force. The ASEC is conducted in the months of February through April and includes questions about work and other activities in the previous calendar year. For example, data collected in 2015 are for the 2014 calendar year, and data collected in 2005 are for the 2004 calendar year.1 In the ASEC, people who did not work at all in the previous year are asked to give the main reason they did not work. Interviewers categorize survey participants’ verbatim responses into the following categories: ill health or disabled; retired;2 home responsibilities; going to school; could not find work;3 and other reasons.

This Beyond the Numbers article examines data on those who were not in the labor force during 2004 and 2014 and the reasons they gave for not working. The data are limited to people who neither worked nor looked for work during the previous year.

This July 2014 report from the Council of Economic Advisers addresses the LFPR:

THE LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION RATE SINCE 2007: CAUSES AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS

(Hat tip, Adrahil: Look deeper.)

[font color="red"]New material:[/font] Here's a Power Point (or equivalent) presentation given by Jason Furman, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, before the National Press Club on August 6, 2015. If you go to the next-to-the-last slide, you'll see that the long-term projected trend is down:

"Trends in Labor Force Participation", 8/6/15

(Hat tip, progree: Over the past month, over the past year, and since February 2010)

[font color="red"]New material:[/font] Paul Vigna had a comment about the LFPR in the December 4, 2015, MoneyBeat column about the November figures:

8:55 am

Breaking down the participation rate
by Paul Vigna

Here’s what we mean when we talk about the participation rate and employment-population ratio.

There are 251.7 million people in the “civilian noninstitutional population,” according to the BLS (this is all contained in this chart). This is the number of people over age 16 who are not in jail or health-care facilities or the military.

Of that group, 157.3 million comprise the civilian labor force. The ratio of the second group to the first is 62.5%. This is the labor force participation rate, the number of people who could be in the labor force – either working or looking for a job – who are in the labor force.

There are 149.3 million people working. The ratio of that group to the overall civilian population is 59.3%. This the employment-population ratio, the number of people who could be working who actually are working.

Why do these number matter? Well, if you just looked at the raw data, you’d see the numbers rising, more or less, month after month. That’s not because the economy’s so rip-roaring, but because the number of people in the nation keeps rising. So you need the ratios to get a sense of how strong the labor force really is.

The labor-force participation rate remains near multi-decade lows, and whether that’s due to demographics, as in people retiring, or weak job opportunities, or whatever, it points to one sort of unavoidable problem: the economy cannot grow at its full potential if you simply don’t have enough people contributing.

Oh, and for the record, there are 94.4 million people not in the labor force.

[font color="red"]New material, added December 2015:[/font]

3:12 pm ET
Dec 8, 2015
economics

As America’s Workforce Ages, Here’s Where the Jobs Will Be

By Jeffrey Sparshott
[email protected]
@jeffsparshott

The U.S. labor force is expected to expand only slowly over the coming decade as the country ages and more Americans give up on holding a job, a potential drag on broader economic growth.

The economy is expected to generate 9.8 million new jobs, a 6.5% increase, from 2014 to 2024, the Labor Department said in new projections released Tuesday. While steady, that is a historically slow pace. By comparison, 10-year job creation averaged almost 14% during the 2001-07 expansion and close to 17% during the 1990s.

The slowdown highlights declining participation as baby boomers retire and younger Americans opt out of the workforce. Those two trends are expected to continue to push the labor-force participation rate lower, to 60.9% in 2024 from 62.9% in 2014, Labor estimates. If realized, that would be the lowest level since 1973, when Richard Nixon was president.

Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen at a congressional hearing last week held out hope the participation rate would hold near current levels as people came off the sidelines and into jobs.


[center]Nattering Nabobs of Negativism[/center]

[font color="red"]New material, added February 26, 2016:[/font] More High-Wage Employment Doesn't Mean the Job Market's Out of the Woods

That's the print edition title.

Wonkblog

The recovery is generating more high-wage jobs — but does that matter?

The U.S. is still digging out of a big hole, and isn't creating new opportunities for those whose jobs disappeared.

By Lydia DePillis February 24
@lydiadepillis

A couple of weeks ago, some economists from Goldman Sachs came out with a rosy pronouncement: "Millions of new jobs and plenty of good ones," read the headline on a note to investors. High-wage employment appeared to pick up from 2013 to the present, a change from the early years of the economic recovery, which generated a disproportionate number of low-wage jobs.



And you don’t have to just take it from an investment bank. The Department of Labor has run its own numbers, and saw similar growth back in October, rendered in absolute numbers rather than growth rates (which Labor’s Chief Economist Heidi Shierholz says held through the end of 2015 in an analysis the department completed last week).

The green bars in the graph below show changes in actual employment, and the orange line shows what it would have been if the growth had been evenly distributed. Shierholz says the loss of low-wage jobs is likely a result of workers in those categories having their wages bumped up above $10 an hour, as the huge growth in low-wage sectors from 2009-2013 led to competition for people in restaurants and retail, or finding better jobs.



That renewed growth in high-wage jobs, which started to show up in 2014, is typical of recoveries from recessions: Low-wage retail and restaurant jobs come back first, as consumers start to buy small-ticket items and go out to eat again. Later on, the profitability trickles up, leading firms to make more expensive hires. Overall, the trend could be responsible for the small uptick in wages that's become evident in recent months, as well.

[font color="red"]Revised material:[/font] Here’s a grim thought:

Fed economists: America’s missing workers are not coming back

Wonkblog

By Max Ehrenfreund September 12 {2014}

A paper by Federal Reserve staff that will be discussed at the Brookings Institution on Friday {September 12, 2014} possibly hints at the central bank's thinking on interest rates and employment in advance of a consequential Fed meeting next week. The findings support [links:http://online.wsj.com/articles/fed-minutes-rate-hike-debate-heating-up-1408557628|hawks] on the Federal Open Market Committee, who feel that the Fed needs to prepare to raise rates sooner than expected, although the results are still being debated and might not persuade the committee's more dovish members.

The paper discusses the number of people who consider themselves part of the workforce -- including both people who have a job and those who are looking for work. It is a measure of the total manpower available in the U.S. economy. This number, the labor force participation rate, has been decreasing steadily since 2000. Americans who can't find work have been leaving the workforce, as have more and more retirees as the population ages.

Let’s follow that with another grim thought:

Why wage growth disparity tells the story of America's half-formed economic recovery

By Chico Harlan November 21, 2014
@chicoharlan
[email protected]

....
With unemployment down to 5.8 percent, the country’s half-formed recovery is often described with a convenient shorthand: We have jobs but little wage growth. But stagnancy is just an average, and for many Americans, the years since the financial crisis have pushed them farther from the line, according to a detailed analysis of government labor statistics by The Washington Post.
....

Among the winners in this climate: Older workers, women and those with finance and technology jobs. ... Among the losers: Part-timers, the young, men, and those in the health, retail and food industries.
....

Chico Harlan covers personal economics as part of The Post's financial team.

Dissenters, take note:

A New Reason to Question the Official Unemployment Rate

David Leonhardt
AUG. 26, 2014

The Labor Department’s monthly jobs report has been the subject of some wacky conspiracy theories. None was wackier than the suggestion from Jack Welch, the former General Electric chief executive, that government statisticians were exaggerating job growth during President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign. Both Republican and Democratic economists dismissed those charges as silly.

But to call the people who compile the jobs report honest, nonpartisan civil servants is not to say that the jobs report is perfect. The report tries to estimate employment in a big country – and to do so quickly, to give policy makers, business executives and everyone else a sense of how the economy is performing. It’s a tough task.

And it has become tougher, because Americans are less willing to respond to surveys than they used to be.

A new academic paper suggests that the unemployment rate appears to have become less accurate over the last two decades, in part because of this rise in nonresponse. In particular, there seems to have been an increase in the number of people who once would have qualified as officially unemployed and today are considered out of the labor force, neither working nor looking for work.

[font color="red"]New material, added January 2016:[/font] From July 2013:

Mort Zuckerman: A Jobless Recovery Is a Phony Recovery

Commentary

Mort Zuckerman: A Jobless Recovery Is a Phony Recovery

More people have left the workforce than got a new job during the recovery—by a factor of nearly three.

By Mortimer Zuckerman
July 15, 2013 7:09 p.m. ET

In recent months, Americans have heard reports out of Washington and in the media that the economy is looking up—that recovery from the Great Recession is gathering steam. If only it were true. The longest and worst recession since the end of World War II has been marked by the weakest recovery from any U.S. recession in that same period.

The jobless nature of the recovery is particularly unsettling. In June, the government's Household Survey reported that since the start of the year, the number of people with jobs increased by 753,000—but there are jobs and then there are "jobs." No fewer than 557,000 of these positions were only part-time. The survey also reported that in June full-time jobs declined by 240,000, while part-time jobs soared by 360,000 and have now reached an all-time high of 28,059,000—three million more part-time positions than when the recession began at the end of 2007.

That's just for starters. The survey includes part-time workers who want full-time work but can't get it, as well as those who want to work but have stopped looking. That puts the real unemployment rate for June at 14.3%, up from 13.8% in May.

The 7.6% unemployment figure so common in headlines these days is utterly misleading. An estimated 22 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed; they are virtually invisible and mostly excluded from unemployment calculations that garner headlines.
....

Mr. Zuckerman is chairman and editor in chief of U.S. News & World Report.


[center]On the Road Again[/center]

The DOL Newsletter - October 6, 2011

DOL Data: There's an App for That
Have an iPhone, iPod Touch or Android phone? Now you can access the latest labor data and news from the department's Bureau of Labor Statistics and Employment and Training Administration in the palm of your hand. The latest free mobile app displays real-time updates to the unemployment rate, Unemployment Insurance initial claims, the Consumer Price Index, payroll employment, average hourly earnings, the Producer Price Index, the Employment Cost Index, productivity, the U.S. Import Price Index and the U.S. Export Price Index in real time, as they are published each week, month or quarter. News releases providing context for the data can also be accessed through the app and viewed within a mobile browser or as PDF documents.

US Labor Department launches economic and employment statistics app

Smartphone users gain mobile access to latest labor data and news

WASHINGTON — The most up-to-date employment data and economic news releases from the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics and its Employment and Training Administration now can be viewed using a new mobile application.
....

The new app is currently available for the iPhone and iPod Touch as well as Android phones. The Labor Department is working to develop versions for BlackBerry and iPad devices. Visit http://m.dol.gov/apps/ to download this and other mobile apps.

Download the Data, Other Mobile Apps


[center]A Few More Things[/center]

[font color="red"]New material, added February 4, 2016:[/font] This article appeared as "Stocks vs. the Economy: Which Ruins Which?"on page C2 of the print edition of The Wall Street Journal. on Tuesday, February 2, 2016.

Does the Economy Ruin the Stock Market or Does the Stock Market Ruin the Economy?

2:49 pm ET
Feb 1, 2016
Markets

By John Carney

Don’t confuse the market for the economy. Markets have overshot fundamentals. There are no signs of contagion into the real economy. ... Anyone paying attention has heard some version of these sentiments lately. Paul Samuelson’s famous quip that the market has predicted nine of the past five recessions is once again on the lips of the wise men and women of Wall Street.

But what if the stock market is more than just an indicator? What if a stock selloff can actually cause unemployment and recessions? ... That’s exactly what historical data on the stock market and the unemployment rate running back to 1929 seem to suggest. A persistent 10% decline in the stock market pushes unemployment up three percentage points.

That, at least, is the finding of University of California Los Angeles economist Roger Farmer. Currently a Distinguished Professor of Economics at UCLA and a Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, Mr. Farmer has been a fellow at the Bank of England and has won awards for his work on inefficiency in financial markets and self-fullfilling prophecies.

In a pair of academic papers written in the wake of the financial crisis, the first published in 2012 and the second published this year, Mr. Farmer has argued that changes in the value of the stock market cause changes in the unemployment rate. The idea will be expanded upon in Mr. Farmer’s forthcoming book, Prosperity for All.

[font color="red"]Moved here, February 6, 2016:[/font] The Federal Reserve looks at, among many other things, the BLS employment reports when it decides what to do with "the interest rate." The interest rate in question is the federal funds target rate. Here is some information about that:

Federal funds rate

The federal funds target rate is determined by a meeting of the members of the Federal Open Market Committee which normally occurs eight times a year about seven weeks apart. The committee may also hold additional meetings and implement target rate changes outside of its normal schedule.

Meet FRED, every wonk’s secret weapon

Storyline ? Meet the wonks

By Todd C. Frankel August 1, 2014

FRED stands for Federal Reserve Economic Data. It serves as an online clearinghouse for a wealth of numbers: unemployment rates, prices of goods, GDP and CPI, things common and obscure. Today, FRED is more than a little bit famous, thanks to the public’s fascination with economic data.

Federal Reserve Economic Data

So how many jobs must be created every month to have an effect on the unemployment rate? There's an app for that:

Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Jobs Calculator™

(Note new link for Jobs Calculator™. Hat tip, progree.)

Monthly Employment Reports from BLS

The U.S. Department of Commerce releases economic data too. Some of its releases come from the U.S. Census Bureau:

U.S. Census Bureau Latest News

U.S. Census Bureau Economic Indicators

Other Department of Commerce releases come from the Bureau of Economic Analysis:

Bureau of Economic Analysis

For people who need a daily fix:

BLS-Labor Statistics Twitter feed

Read tomorrow's news before it happens. Here's the schedule for all economic reports:

MarketWatch Economic Calendar[font color="red"]
14 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight: NoneDon't highlight anything 5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies

BumRushDaShow

(127,305 posts)
1. "there's less pressure for an interest rate increase"
Fri Oct 7, 2016, 08:39 AM
Oct 2016

Yeah - it looks like that will be the narrative, although I am thinking they are going to do it in December anyway (it'll be after the election).

Will pop back in as you get your updates!!! As always, great job every month!

mahatmakanejeeves

(56,895 posts)
2. Thanks. Actual work to do today. Might take a while.
Fri Oct 7, 2016, 08:41 AM
Oct 2016
TWSJ. has made the MoneyBeat blog pay-per-view. That's too bad, as they have great comments. I can go in through Google News to get around that.

Their paper; their rules.

BumRushDaShow

(127,305 posts)
5. Although
Fri Oct 7, 2016, 09:18 AM
Oct 2016

it may be interesting to see if there might be an employment impact during the upcoming holiday season that might factor into any decisoin. I say this because I saw where USPS is planning to bring on 10,000 more seasonal workers and temps this year than last year (with the expectation to keep some on permanently). Amazon effect!

Of course on the distaff side to leave it alone is Brexit and OPEC (and hurricanes).

cstanleytech

(26,080 posts)
4. For future reference you might want to keep such post shorter as its a bit to much for some people
Fri Oct 7, 2016, 09:11 AM
Oct 2016

(like myself) to try and process as right now my eyes are glazing over a bit.

BumRushDaShow

(127,305 posts)
6. You could always bookmark it and read it sections at a time
Fri Oct 7, 2016, 09:22 AM
Oct 2016

I expect those who are into the data that feeds rate reporting as well as the analysis of that data, will be grateful. But those who only want to know what the monthly rate is can get that out of the OP title!

mahatmakanejeeves

(56,895 posts)
8. I've been meaning to do that. It is getting long. (I'm not upset.)
Fri Oct 7, 2016, 09:30 AM
Oct 2016

The whole point is that there is a lot more to the report than can be covered in a 30-second segment on the TV news. A lot of terms are glossed over, and an explanation is needed.

The commentary is not meant to be read quickly. What I intend this for, no kidding, is for a high school student, say, who has the news read out to him in a civics class. The teacher asks the class to turn in a 500-word report on the BLS employment report Monday morning. The kid doesn't know what to do, so he Googles. This page comes up. He clicks on the link.

He gets the report from the BLS, not from some silver-hoarding site. There is no spin. The OP is proudly non-partisan. Good news, bad news, I don't care. It gets posted every month no matter. I make no effort to hide unfavorable developments, and I do not try to overemphasize good developments.

The Wall Street Journal. is among the handful of newspapers that set the gold standard for print journalism in this country, so I link to a few blogs there. Their editorial policy skews to the right, but they maintain a firewall between their editorial department and their news department. They don't make things up. The MoneyBeat writers are at the top of their field, and the comments are well-informed.

Posting this thread is the highlight of my month. There are plenty of places where people emphasize doom and gloom and plenty of places where people emphasize unjustified boosterism. I post in the expectation that this thread is neither of those. I welcome people coming over from you-know-where to find what they need.

This season is full of acrimony, and I hope we can avoid it here.

The commentary can't be read all at once. Take the whole weekend if you have to. There's a lot of old stuff in there that can be weeded out. I have some other things to get done today, so it might take some time.

Thank you - and everyone else - for reading this thread and for your participation.

Best wishes.

cstanleytech

(26,080 posts)
9. I never said it was spin I am simply pointing out that
Fri Oct 7, 2016, 09:43 AM
Oct 2016

keeping it simpler makes it easier as the majority of us are not educated enough on such things and to much information can easily overwhelm a person when they arent well versed on a subject.
Besides those who are well educated on such things or work in that area probably are aware of the information and or know where to look for it if they need more detailed information on the subject.

mahatmakanejeeves

(56,895 posts)
10. Sorry. Will elaborate.
Fri Oct 7, 2016, 09:54 AM
Oct 2016

I usually start the commentary with six or seven talking points, which appear in a red font. All you have to do to get a quick fix on this month's report is to read them. This month, due to a project that I have to work on for my employer, I haven't been able to get to that yet. Maybe later today or tomorrow I can get around to that.

That introductory material is the meat and potatoes (spellcheck says an "e" is needed) of the BLS report. The remainder is side dishes. Many, many side dishes.

I will endeavor to attend to getting those talking points up as quickly as I can. The OP gets updated over and over. I was still making edits to last month's thread this morning.

You have valid concerns. I will do what I can to get you that information.

Thank you again for writing.

cstanleytech

(26,080 posts)
11. Well I do have a suggestion you might want to include a link to pastebin or a similar site where
Fri Oct 7, 2016, 10:02 AM
Oct 2016

you can include links to more detailed information and that way you keep your post here on the DU short and information overload for village idiots such as myself is avoided ,

mahatmakanejeeves

(56,895 posts)
12. No, you are not the village idiot. No one who participates in this thread is an idiot.
Fri Oct 7, 2016, 10:14 AM
Oct 2016

It's a lot of stuff. I'm still editing. I just added a link. This is the news in a nutshell.

The September Jobs Report by the Numbers

TWSJ. will add charts and graphs throughout the day. All of their articles will explain what's going on. I'll link to them as I can.

Yes, this is like drinking from a fire hose, but this report can determine the outcome of elections. You can be sure that an increase in the unemployment rate from 4.9% to 5.0% has not gone unnoticed.

Thanks again.

forest444

(5,902 posts)
7. Excellent update as always. A real labor of love.
Fri Oct 7, 2016, 09:24 AM
Oct 2016

I can't help but be reminded of what the last September in the previous administration was like. We were one step from happened in Argentina in 2001 - and would have in fact been there had the Fed not printed $20 trillion to paper over bank losses.

Thank goodness for the almighty dollar.

progree

(10,864 posts)
13. Over the past month, over the past year, and since February 2010
Fri Oct 7, 2016, 11:23 AM
Oct 2016

Last edited Fri Oct 7, 2016, 03:21 PM - Edit history (1)

Here are some summary tables of the key September 2016 jobs reports statistics from the Establishment Survey and the Household Survey released on October 7, 2016.

A narrative "Detailed Discussion" section follows these tables.

In the below tables, all "%" ones are percentage point changes, *not* percent increases or decreases. FOR EXAMPLE, when you see something like this:

+0.1% Unemployment rate

It means that the unemployment rate increased by 0.1 percentage points (this EXAMPLE is from March 2016 when the unemployment rate rose from 4.9% to 5.0%).

[div class="excerpt" style="background-color:#CEF6FE;"]Before each item, (F) indicates very bad, (D) indicates bad, (C) indicates neutral, (B) indicates good, (A) indicates very good

[font color=blue]OVER THE LAST MONTH[/font]:
== ESTABLISHMENT SURVEY ==
(A ) +156,000 Nonfarm Payroll Employment ( CES0000000001 )

== HOUSEHOLD SURVEY (warning: this survey's monthly change figures are very statistically noisy) ==
(A ) +444,000 Labor Force (employed + jobless people who have looked for work sometime in the last 4 weeks)

(A ) +354,000 Employed. Note it is much greater than
` ` ` the +156,000 increase in payroll employment. Go figure. (The latter is far
` ` ` less volatile due to a much larger sample).

(D ) +90,000 Unemployed (jobless people who have looked for work sometime in the last 4 weeks)

(A ) +0.1% Employment-To-Population Ratio aka Employment Rate (it's at 59.8%)

(A ) +0.1% LFPR (Labor Force Participation rate) (it's at 62.9%)
` ` ` It is only 0.5% above a multi-decade low of 62.4% reached in September 2015.
` ` ` OTOH, that 0.5% increase in this tough statistic in 12 months is really nice

(D ) +0.1% Unemployment rate (it's at 5.0%). Is Unemployed (as defined above) / Labor Force [N864.HM].
` ` ` Caused by a large increase in the number of people seeking jobs in the last 4 weeks,
` ` ` partly offset by those finding employment. Basically 444,000 more people looked for
` ` ` work in the past 4 weeks, and 354,000 found jobs. The remaining 90,000 raised the
` ` ` unemployed count. Overall, I'm happy that so many additional started looking for
` ` ` work and so many found jobs. But I'll still rate an uptick in the unemployment rate
` ` ` as a "D". (The month to month changes are more statistical noise than signal
` ` ` anyway, so none of this is a big deal. It's why I present longer time perspectives
` ` ` in the next sections).

(C ) +0.0% U-6 unemployment rate (it's at 9.7%) http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS13327709

(D ) +0.1% "U-7" unemployment rate: Counts EVERY jobless person who SAYS they want a job,
` ` ` no matter how long it has been since they looked for work, plus part-timers who want
` ` ` full time work. (U-7 is now at 12.0%). This is not good. Although over the past 12
` ` ` months it has ticked down by 0.2%.

(F ) +255,000 Not in Labor Force, Wants Job LNS15026639
` ` ` In last month's report it went DOWN by 53,000. Again illustrating the month-to-month
` ` ` volatility of Household Survey statistics. Over the past 12 months it is up by
` ` ` 144,000. That's not good either.

(A ) -159,000 Part-Time Workers who want Full-Time Jobs (Table A-8's Part-Time For Economic Reasons)

(C ) +430,000 Part-Time Workers (Table A-9). I gave this a "neutral" (C ) rating because
` ` ` I'm undecided whether this is good or bad. The key statistic on part-time workers
` ` ` is the one above -- part-time workers who want full-time work, and this month that
` ` ` went down 159,000, which is very good.

(F ) -5,000 Full-Time Workers (Table A-9), awful. The righties and their DU allies will
` ` ` undoubtedly make an enormous hoo-hah out of this and the 430,000 increase in part-time
` ` ` workers, and try to make it sound like the story of the Obama administration (i.e. that
` ` ` most new jobs are part-time. But that's not true.
` ` ` In the last 3 months, full-time workers increased by an average of 237,000/month
` ` ` and in the past year, by 2.423 million ( 201,900/month average ). Since the job
` ` ` market bottom in February 2010, there has been a 10,000 increase in part-time
` ` ` workers and a 13,518,000 increase in full-time workers


^--Monthly change figures in the Household Survey are probably best ignored due to volatility caused by statistical noise. That's true in both "bad" months and in "good" months

The "U-7" unemployment rate is a creation of Paul Solman of the PBS Newshour, not a BLS number. The above number is one I calculated, because he doesn't update his number every month, and when he does, it is about a day after the jobs report comes out. My number has consistently matched his within 0.1 percentage points (and mine has always been a bit higher). The "U-7" unemployment rate counts EVERY jobless person who SAYS they want a job, no matter how long it has been since they looked for work, plus part-timers who want full time work

For more background on the U-7 number, see: "If you count everyone who says they want a job, even if they have made no effort to find one in many years" at http://www.democraticunderground.com/111622439#post2

[font color = magenta]See "Detailed Discussion" section below for a narrative discussion of the above statistics over the past month, the past year, and since the jobs recovery began in March 2010[/font]

[font color=blue]OVER THE LAST YEAR (last 12 months)[/font]:
==== ESTABLISHMENT SURVEY ====
+2,447,000 Nonfarm Payroll Employment (Establishment Survey, CES0000000001)
+0.91% INFLATION ADJUSTED Weekly Earnings of Production and Non-Supervisory Workers ( CES0500000031 )
......... the weekly earnings percentage is 11 months thru August because no CPI data for September yet
==== HOUSEHOLD SURVEY ========
+3,040,000 Labor Force = Employed + jobless people who looked for work in the past 4 weeks
+3,026,000 Employed
+14,000 Unemployed (jobless people who looked for work in the past 4 weeks)
+0.5% Employment-To-Population Ratio aka Employment Rate
+0.5% LFPR (Labor Force Participation rate)
-0.1% Unemployment rate
-0.3% U-6 unemployment rate (fabulous. it includes anyone that looked for work even once in the past year)
-0.2% "U-7" unemployment rate: Counts EVERY jobless person who SAYS they want a job,
` ` ` no matter how long it has been since they looked for work, plus part-timers who want
` ` ` full time work
+144,000 Not in Labor Force, Wants Job LNS15026639
-140,000 Part-Time Workers who want Full-Time Jobs (Table A-8's Part-Time For Economic Reasons)
+628,000 Part-Time Workers (Table A-9)
+2,423,000 Full-Time Workers (Table A-9)

The reason there's no data for September yet for the inflation-adjusted Weekly Earnings is because the CPI inflation adjustment number for September is not yet available.

Most of the "over the last year" numbers are really good numbers. Exceptions:

The Labor Force Participation Rate, although ticking up a notch this past 12 months (good direction, though tiny) is at 62.9%, which is only 0.5 percentage points above a multi-decade low. (Though I'm happy that it has improved by 0.5 percentage points in just 12 months).

Interesting though that there was a 0.5 percentage point increase in the Employment To Population Ratio in the past 12 months, and a 1.6 percentage point increase from its multi-decade low point of 58.2% in November 2010. So we have the labor force participation rate increasing by only 0.5% from its multi-decade low, while the employment to population ratio has a much more substantial 1.6% increase from its multi-decade low. The Population being talked about is the civilian non-institutional population age 16 and over, yes, including all elderly people, even centenarians .

Seems to me that there is too much discussion in the media of the Labor Force Participation Rate -- aka the Labor Force to Population Ratio -- (the employed plus the jobless people who have looked for work in the last 4 weeks, all divided by the population), and not enough attention to what seemingly matters more -- the Employment to Population Ratio. Why aren't we celebrating the increase in the percentage of the population that is employed (the employment to population ratio)-- a figure that has been slowly moving up since the job market bottom, despite the growing wave of baby boomer retirements?

(As always, the population being talked about is the civilian non-institutional population age 16 and over, including the elderly, even centenarians).

Another "bad" number is the 14,000 increased in the officially unemployed over the past 12 months. This is the increase in the number of jobless people who looked for work in the past 4 weeks. Despite 3,026,000 finding work in the past 12 months, the number of unemployed increased because even more than 3,026,000 sought jobs during this period. Paradoxically, this is a good sign, because a lot of jobless people have come off the sideline to look for work. (The civilian non-institutional age 16+ population (including the elderly, even centenarians) has grown by less than that, so its not a matter of population growth outstripping the number of jobs).

Another bad number is the 144,000 increase in "not in labor force, but says they want a job (NILF-WJ)" statistic. This "NILF-WJ" statistic includes every jobless person who hasn't looked for work in the past 4 weeks, but says they want a job. Kind of hard to explain the increase in this statistic in light of what I said about employment growth (3,026,000) exceeding the 2,766,000 growth of the civilian non-institutional population age 16+ (including the elderly, even centenarians). And the 0.5% increase in the employment to population ratio. My guess is more marginally interested people are thinking they might want a job, given the better likelihood of finding a job than a year ago.

[font color=blue]SINCE THE PAYROLL EMPLOYMENT RECOVERY BEGAN -- Last 79 months thru September 30, 2016: 9'16 - 2'10[/font]:
(This is the period from when continuous growth of payroll employment began, thru September 30, 2016)
==== ESTABLISHMENT SURVEY ====
+15,098,000 Nonfarm Payroll Employment (Establishment Survey, CES0000000001)
+5.36% INFLATION ADJUSTED Weekly Earnings of Production and Non-Supervisory Workers ( CES0500000031 )
......... the weekly earnings percentage is thru July 2016 because no CPI data for August yet
==== HOUSEHOLD SURVEY ====
+6,213,000 Labor Force
+13,387,000 Employed
-7,174,000 Unemployed (jobless people who have looked for work in the past 4 weeks)
+1.3% Employment-To-Population Ratio aka Employment Rate (woo hoo!)
-2.0% LFPR (Labor Force Participation rate) (ughh)
-4.8% Unemployment rate
-7.3% U-6 unemployment rate
-6.9% "U-7" unemployment rate: Counts EVERY jobless person who SAYS they want a job,
` ` ` no matter how long it has been since they looked for work, plus part-timers who want
` ` ` full time work
-10,000 Not in Labor Force, Wants Job LNS15026639
-3,042,000 Part-Time Workers who want Full-Time Jobs (Table A-8's Part-Time For Economic Reasons)
+10,000 Part-Time Workers (Table A-9)
+13,518,000 Full-Time Workers (Table A-9)

[font color=blue]Part-Time Workers Who Want Full Time Jobs, as % of All Employed[/font]
[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.37em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"]Sep'15 Jun'16 Aug'16 Sep'16
[div style="display:inline; font-size:1.37em; font-family:monospace; white-space:pre;"]4.1% 3.9% 4.0% 3.9%
[closes the light blue highlight tag begun b4 the 1st table]


Umm, but aren't most of the new jobs part-time? (umm, no)

A graph of part-time and full-time workers (from June 2009 through November 2015)


CLARIFICATION: in the above, these are part-time workers and full-time workers, not part-time jobs and full-time jobs.

This excellent post from early July 2015 show two perspectives of the trends in part-time workers and full-time workers (not part-time jobs and full-time jobs). Thanks mahatmakanejeeves
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141134306#post12

What kind of Wages?

INFLATION-ADJUSTED Average Weekly Earnings Of Production And Nonsupervisory Employees, Total Private, 1982-84 Dollars
http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0500000031

Again, the above are INFLATION-ADJUSTED earnings

Here is the nominal, i.e. not-inflation-adjusted version of the above:
Weekly: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0500000030
Hourly: http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0500000008

[div class="excerpt" style="background-color:#CEF6FE;"]See "Detailed Discussion" section below for a narrative discussion of the above statistics over the past month, the past year, and since the jobs recovery began in March 2010

The links to the data above
# Nonfarm Payroll Employment (Establishment Survey, http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0000000001
# INFLATION ADJUSTED Weekly Earnings of Production and Non-Supervisory Workers http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/CES0500000031
# Labor Force http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11000000
# Employed http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12000000
# Unemployed http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS13000000
# Employment-To-Population Ratio aka Employment Rate http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12300000
# LFPR (Labor Force Participation rate) http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000
# Unemployment rate http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000
# U-6 unemployment rate http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS13327709
# NILF-WJ -- Not in Labor Force, Wants Job http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS15026639
# Part-Time Workers who want Full-Time Jobs (Table A-8's Part-Time For Economic Reasons) http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12032194
# Part-Time Workers (Table A-9) http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12600000
# Full-Time Workers (Table A-9) http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS12500000

########################################################################
FFI on the most recent jobs report, straight from the Bureau of Labor Statistics: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

Table A-1. Employment status of the civilian population by sex and age (household survey) http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm

Several graphs of the key economic stats -- http://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cps_charts.pdf

The whole enchilada -- including all 16 "A" tables (the household survey) and all 9 "B" tables (the establishment survey) http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

[font color = brown] ----------------------------------------------------------------------
Table A-1 and other tables can be found at the all-tables full jobs report at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf, or gotten one-at-a-time from the bottom section of http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm . For example, Table A-9 alone is at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t09.htm )
----------------------------------------------------------------------[/font]

BLS Commissioner's Statement on The Employment Situation http://www.bls.gov/news.release/jec.nr0.htm

The Council of Economic Advisors' Take on the Jobs Report
https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2016/10/07/employment-situation-september. (find this at
https://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/cea/blog or http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/cea
and look for the last "The Employment Situation in" post). Or Google what's in between the {}'s: {site:whitehouse.gov employment situation in September}

Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner's Corner: http://beta.bls.gov/labs/blogs/ Twitter Account: https://twitter.com/BLS_gov

mahatmakanejeeves thread - very comprehensive OP each month when the jobs report comes out, as well as additional material he posts to the thread in the following hours. Watch the OP for edits too. And the thread for more material http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141590296

[div class="excerpt" style="background-color: #ffa !important;"][font size=4 color=blue]Detailed Discussion[/font]

10/7/16 -

I'm going to skip this narrative this month, since I have some urgent personal matters. A good jobs report, but not grand. What's worth noting is in the commentary that is with the tables above.

In a nutshell, the payroll jobs growth (+156,000) was good but not great. The unemployment rate ticked up a notch (+0.1% to 5.0%) which is bad -- but the reason is good: a huge 444,000 increase in the labor force (that's the sum of the employed plus jobless people who looked for work in the past 4 weeks aka "active job seekers&quot . Of the 444,000 increase in the labor force, 354,000 found jobs, which is great; but 90,000 didn't, and so they added to the unemployment count. (The civilian non-institutional population, age 16+ increased by 237,000, so the labor force increase far outstripped the adult population increase -- indicating we have a large number of people coming off the sidelines and joining the labor force either as employed or active job seekers).

The aberrant statistic of the month is the 5,000 decline in full-time workers. But in the last 3 months, full-time workers increased by an average of 237,000/month. And in the past year, full-time workers increase by 2.423 million ( 201,900/month average ).

Since the job market bottom in February 2010, there has been a 10,000 increase in part-time workers and a 13,518,000 increase in full-time workers. So the doomer meme that most new jobs under Obama are part-time simply isn't true, at least according to the BLS.


mahatmakanejeeves

(56,895 posts)
14. Swell charts 'n' stuff online at BLS and TWSJ.
Fri Oct 7, 2016, 12:27 PM
Oct 2016
https://twitter.com/BLS_gov

See our interactive graphics on today’s Jobs Report:

Graphics for Economic News Releases

More charts and analysis on the September nonfarm payroll employment numbers:

Current Employment Statistics Highlights, September 2016. Release Date: October 7, 2016

The September Jobs Report by the Numbers

8:43 am EST Oct 7, 2016

By Ben Leubsdorf

American employers continued to add jobs at a modest pace last month, the Labor Department said Friday. It was the 72nd consecutive month that total nonfarm payrolls rose, marking six full years of continuous job creation in the wake of the 2007-09 recession. The highly anticipated September jobs report was released roughly a month before Election Day and could reverberate in the ongoing campaigns for control of the White House and Congress. Here are the details from Friday’s report.

The September Jobs Report in 10 Charts

By Josh Zumbrun

[email protected]
http://twitter.com/JoshZumbrun

Oct 7, 2016 9:25 am ET

Employers added 156,000 jobs in September and the unemployment rate was little changed at 5%. Here’s a look into some of the details and historical context. While not the weakest report of 2016, September’s monthly job creation of 156,000 is somewhat below the average of recent years. In the first nine months of ....
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