"The labor force rose by 601,000 people last month, driving the proportion of the civilian adult population that is either working or looking for work up by 0.2 percentage points, to 62.9 percent." Not to mention, isn't commencement normally in June? Wouldn't the newly graduated high school, college, professional school, and doctorates also be looking for jobs in June? It seems like an obvious factor people are overlooking.
1
Corporate America needs low cost labor to earn greater revenues, which is why neoliberals celebrate the entrance of more surplus labor into the markets. Despite the dominance of capital inputs, low cost labor inputs are required for the earning of corporate net profits. Employees should deny their value added labor to employers, and instead become wreckers of exploitation.
1
Or possibly the job seeker numbers went up because we just graduated a whole lot of people into the system. Most likely the people on the sidelines remain on the sidelines, voluntarily or not.
4
Don’t read too much into the monthly numbers!!! The unemployment rate is reported accurate to /-0.2% (that’s a 90% confidence interval for those who stayed awake in their statistics class). The June increase in the participation rate is just noise. The trend is flat over the last year, but that’s a sign of strength given the demographics (the aging of the population implies that the participation rate should be trending lower).
1
The unemployment rate is reported accurate to /- 0.2% (that’s a 90% confidence interval for those who stayed awake in their statistics class)
1
Uh, hello? We're partying on borrowed money! We're not doing near enough to grow our way into paying the bill. Just because the world hasn't declared us bankrupt yet, doesn't mean they won't.
5
If you want wages to go up you need to regulate the amount of immigrants entering the country. I am not saying no immigrants but someone should be looking at how many people we need to supply the work force and that is the number of immigrants we should allow to apply for citizenship.
3
This is exactly how your employer wants you to think. Supply-side theories don't work, this is the same theory that "trickle down economics" relies on. They want you to believe your wages cannot increase unless we create a shortage of workers. How sick is that? carrying that logic forward, if our population rises too much we have to pay people less? How does that reconcile with the fact that US births are decreasing and deaths rising?
Wages are not low because everyone can be replaced with immigrants. Wages are low because no one is demanding a pay raise on behalf of low skilled workers. It is scary to ask for a raise when your kids meals depend on the pay you do have. This is what unions are for; they exist so thay no one has to stick their neck out to ask for a raise. We don't do unions perfectly in this country. For example, tenure should not outweigh performance in determining wages, promotions, or layoffs. However, if workers don't band together and tell their employees that they are not paid fairly, then most people will just be replaced by the next applicant to keep costs low.
11
Nope,nope and more nope. We had bigger immigration influxes in the late 90's and mid-00's and had higher wages. Nothing against you Sean, learn about the Boomer withdrawal and understand how it is distorting everything in the post-Boomer era including the U-series.
I would argue the US economy needs to contract 10% to get back into balance. In 2007 it was 15%. Low wages, immigrants fleeing the country. You don't respect that capitalism is a ponzi scheme of usury banking.
5
You left off the third option, create another recession, either through trade war or the wall street casino cashing out again.
This economy is getting too hot anyway(business doesn't want to raise wages) time to lay off some people.
When I was in NYC the economy was good, but since I moved to Florida it hasn't recovered.
There are two versions of the economy, places outside the big cities are still lagging in the recovery.
2
Today, the media is treating Americans to two competing narratives about the health of our economy. The first narrative, based on traditional economic indicators released by the U.S. government, informs us that our economy is booming due to a low 4 percent unemployment rate, low inflation and a robust new job creation rate, 213,000 jobs created in June alone. The second narrative, based on reliable but nontraditional factors, informs us that our economy is failing the majority of Americans due to the gross concentration of wealth and income at the top of the economic ladder, the failure of most jobs to pay a living wage, the proliferation of too many low-wage jobs, the continuing stagnation of worker wages and the reality that many Americans are forced to take an additional job to make ends meet. It’s clear that economists, politicians, advocates and journalists who report on our economy must take action to reconcile these two conflicting narratives for the well-being of our economy, our government, our democracy and our citizens.
11
Nope, it is the boomer withdrawal. In terms of wealth concentrations, this is no worse than what we have had since the 80's. The U-series has been damaged because of the double counting going on.
1
The media covers the trickle-down economy as if it’s a win-win situation, one win for the wealthy and near/wealthy investor classes and one win for the working middle classes. These economic expansions merely enrich the haves and the near-haves. Working people bump along. The poor get pummeled. America will concede defeat and implement living wages and a universal basic income at some point. I just pray we mature enough to do it without the need for a cataclysmic depression.
or massive violent riots in the streets...….if I were a 1%er I'd start making the gates on my community higher and stronger.
It seems that lately most or all of NYT's articles on unemployment and economic conditions characterize every new general statistic as positive for workers and and the economy. The slight increase last month probably resulted from factors not mentioned, as usual. New graduates are seeking work, many unsuccessfully. Most new jobs offer low pay and no or few benefits, such as contract work, temporary and part-time gigs, and positions with employers that cannot offer meaningful compensation. Perhaps that's one reason for our vanishing middle class. News of more jobs prompts reentry into the workforce yet continued unemployment for many people. The types of available jobs often do not match experience. Some employees' added expenses (e.g., child care, transportation, taxes) while working in a bad job may result in a net decrease or only a slight increase in income. Older, experienced, skilled workers, unemployed for years, are rarely considered for any position, and they come and go from the workforce. Most of this information is based on common sense. Economists either do not consider it or ignore it because of an apparent bias in favor of a positive spin.
9
This is the first time I recall ever reading about labor statistics for the month of June when seasonal trends are not mentioned as a cause of increased jobs and increase labor numbers. There is no benefit in reading this article.
8
Many of these jobs are due to retail stores hiring for the summer sales season. Home Depot, Lowe's, various tourist areas add many part time, low paying jobs. Not many become permanent full time positions. Some may remain part time.
Resort areas bump up the need as well. Once the demand is over, so are the many jobs.
For employers finding those that can pass a drug or criminal check is a problem as well.
Another point is how many have stopped looking, dropped out of the national numbers? How has the many college grads gotten employment within their degree? How many are continuing their education hoping to get the high paying job with a higher degree?
While it appears encouraging, there is still many unemployed or underemployed.
1
Finally – an employment report that’s easy to understand! Along with that, why does the American Job Shortage Number (AJSN) tell us we could now fill almost a million more positions than last month? See http://worksnewage.blogspot.com/2018/07/here-comes-latent-demand-for-emp....
While it seems to be good news that some who had "dropped out" of the labor market are back looking for work, I agree with others that it's worth looking into the reasons. One of them is that, all official statistics to the contrary, living costs continue to rise a lot more than the consumer price index suggests, so some people (including retirees) have to look for work again to make ends meet. The other point worth looking at is the still anemic increase in people's average wages and salaries. If this economy and its labor market would be truly as robust as the official numbers suggest, employers should be competing a lot harder for workers, resulting in higher wages and salaries - simple supply and demand economics 101. The fact that this is clearly not the case means that either the low unemployment numbers are misleading, the job market is dysfunctional, or both. My guess is both. If wage growth is that low in a boom, I hate to see what happens in the unavoidable next bust.
15
Wage increases are still embedded in massive increases in health care costs.
3
Without more data, it is impossible to put this blip into context. Will higher job development numbers continue in the light of trade wars? Will people continue to join the workforce? Is this a summer job blip?
The trade wars will likely make some companies smaller and force people out of jobs. Trump tinkered with something that was not broken, likely hastening the next recession.
2
This ten-year graph
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART/
shows participation rates (% working or seeking work over adults of working age) fell from 66% to 62.5-63% over 2008-2014 and has stayed in that lower range since. This blip does not appear to be significant as the monthly number jumps around. Not much of a trend really.
So, these new job searchers are not settling for low wages?
1
and employers don't have the demand to give them higher wages. When employers are whining about "workers shortages" they are whining about people to replace the Boomers "skill" or basically experience. There are no workers shortage. There is a retirement boom.
2
Or, there is a shortage of people willing to work for wages that are too low to live on. Every time I hear, read or watch a story about yet another employer not being able to find workers, I now automatically add "at the low wages we are willing to pay" to their statements. Because that's really what is going on, and that is why the average wages are not going up.
Actually, older workers are still being replaced by cheaper, younger workers. And around here, most of the jobs pay around $14 per hour, while the cost of housing and health care continues to soar.
No, hiring was sluggish in the 2nd quarter. NFP is lagging households and that was pretty evident when the sampling errors around "spring break" were worked out. The total number of work force entrants is not any way shape or form different than the last couple of years in pattern. Unemployment jumped because because it was never that low in the first place.
I suspect NFP will slow during the 2nd half of the year. Trump should really think about making the BLS start publishing Household data with NFP. It has been my go to data since 2001. It leads despite the fluctuations, the mean is a better leading indicator than NFP.
1
Who will have had more of a net-negative impact on their national economy, Stalin or Trump? I will venture that, in absolute terms of economic value destruction, Trump will likely win that head-to-head matchup once the full impact of his Trade War tirade takes effect. See you on the other side of our next recession. The last one took most of the banking industry to crash the party; this time it'll just take one ill-advised leader (with colluders in tow).
5
Stalin ? Give us a break !
3
Under Stalin, Russian economy went boom despite the war which took a decade to recover from. Matter of fact, by the late 60's, Russia was at a historical peak and total GDP was slightly above the trend line since 1913. Sucked if you were part of the "Rus" colonies, even they had some winners. There is a reason why Stalin is fondly remembered by many "Rus". Russia has always been a economic lightweight. Pre,Soviet,Post. For a couple of decades, they actually mattered.
The tariff issue is clearly in play and we will see how it works out. Nobody wants a trade war...
Meanwhile this report is very good for the US but that won't matter to Trump haters. To many would rather see the economy tank if make him look bad.
9
" Trump haters. To many would rather see the economy tank if make him look bad."
Do you recall what Mitch McConnell and the Republicans said about Obama? They were willing to hurt the US economy just to make Obama a one-term president. Conveniently you forget that.
And of course, the disregard for conventional English spelling that seems a point of pride for 45 and supporters, not knowing the difference between "to" and "too"...
6
How does this jibe with the Administration talking point that we have more jobs than people to fill them? If that were the case, wouldn't those reentering the labor market be immediately placed and we wouldn't see a rise in the unemployment rate? This also fails to account for (1) reasons why people are out of the workforce that do not change over time [caretaking, retirement] or (2) the influx of new college graduates into the workforce. Something seems askew between what we are being told by the cheerleading business press and reality.
5
No, it means that the skills required for many of the unfilled positions is different than the skill set of people looking for jobs.
6
The skill set argument is, in most cases, nonsense.
Of course I don't want a bridge built by a board certified MD, nor do I want my surgery performed by a license Professional Engineer but most of these employer skill set problems are a matter if employer incompetence or unwillingness to provide even minimal training.
Too many employers want to hire receptionists who have experience answering blue (or green or whatever) telephones. Bookkeepers who have worked in dental offices aren't skilled in physicians offices, etc.
And, of course, the problem is only amplified by computer software that screens resumes so that people will not have to make decisions.
When I was hiring computer programmers, I never cared if they knew a particular programming language. Any smart person can pick up a language easily enough. My only interest was to learn if they could THINK. All else (in Rabbi Hillel's words) is commentary.
16
spring break was broken into 2 parts and got all put in during June. Basically hiring slowed down the in the 2nd quarter.
Many looking for jobs are taking part time work where the employer doesn't pay benefits. When one needs a job, PT is better that nothing. Prices in supermarkets are going up, but apparently that is not called inflation. The statics on employment
are precarious at best. Why not publish the numbers of foreclosures, or personal credit card debt or empty stores...
13
"There are, to be simplistic, only two ways the economy can keep growing. Either employers can squeeze higher productivity out of the existing labor force, getting greater output per hour of work. Or they can find a new supply of workers."
*Before automation, to be simplistic, there _were_.
Automation is the first way - it increases productivity.
2
But, automation usually happens if the savings in labor costs offset the costs of new equipment needed to automate. One reason for the low productivity growth in recent years is that wage and salary levels continue to be low, which reduces the pressure to automate. The other reason for our low growth in per person productivity is the unwillingness of many employers to train employees, which also restricts their productivity.
2
The participation rate is extremely important and the fact that previously discouraged people are returning to the workplace is probably most important to less educated and what is the minority’s work participation rate and has it risen recently? If those are favorable I doubt we will see a story in the NYT to that event.
4
James, have you actually read the headline of the article? If the N.Y. times would just be out to get Trump, why would they even publish this article right here? The problem with Trump and his administration is that they provide more than enough real bad news that nobody needs to make any up. The question you raise (employment rates of minorities) is an important one, but I am not so sure that many core Trump voters really care.
2
This article takes an inordinately short-term view of the labor participation rate, leading the author to a more optimistic conclusion than the evidence so far supports.
A one-month uptick in the participation rate indicates nothing. The participation rate ticked up three-tenths of a percent from January to February, and the Trump administration trumpeted it as a result of the tax cut bill. But the participation rate ticked back down in March, April and May, and, as the author notes, the June rise doesn't even match the rate in February. This is hardly a trend.
If you look back a few years, the participation rate has been remarkably steady - for all but two months from October 2013 to now, the participation rate has been between 62.5 and 63.0 percent. During that time, the rate has been as high as or higher than June's rate 23 times.
Furthermore, if you look back a few decades, the participation rates of the last five years are the lowest since the late 1970s. (The stats are available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics - https://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet.)
The author looks back a few months and finds good news in the participation rate. But if you look back a few years or a few decades, the data do not yet provide any basis for concluding that the participation rate is in an upward trend.
politicsbyeccehomo.wordpress.com
23
Don't be fooled by the "headline" labor force participation rate. That includes civilians over the age of 15, including all of those retiring baby boomers. As the boomers age, they move from a cohort where almost everyone is working to a cohort where almost everyone is retired. The huge number of boomers is skewing the participation rate lower as they retire.
If you follow core age workers (25-54), the labor force participation rate is just 1% lower than before the recession and about 2% lower than the all-time high in the late 1990's. That definitely means there are a couple million potential workers on the sidelines, but the rate is not historically terrible.
The age group with room for improvement is young workers between 15 and 24. These workers have NOT returned to the labor market and 13% fewer are seeking work than 30 years ago.
6
Agreed Ecce, I think Neil to prove he is objective is lavishing praise on Trump for keeping our head above water like it is the greatest economic boon in history.
It is basically a continuation of the eight boring yrs. of slow but steady growth with no recession under Obama.
The damaging effects of any trade war with the rest of the world and our ballooning deficits due to corporate welfare tax breaks and massive defense spending will come home to roost and really hurt us.
The only question is when.
5
The Boomer "post retirement" are crowding out some of the 18-24 gang. So that makes some sense why over the last 15 years, this has been yawn worthy along with increased post-secondary education increases.
1
When items become more expensive because of tariffs --is this considered inflation?? (and why not? Lots of hidden or not so hidden taxes in various goods and services?)
Please define overheated economy? (Creating more junque or convenience items to be shipped via UPS? which then cannot find poorly paid people to drive the trucks. Google trucks where are you??)
Oh, is it a thing if interest rates go up to 4% and the stock market falls say 20%? (Pease explain, why it's OK to have a PE of 33?)
1
Inflation = an increase in prices. It does not matter why the prices are increasing - it is counted in inflation. So yes, tariffs will be captured in the inflation statistics.
Overheated economy = an economy that is temporarily operating beyond its capacity. Think about an electronic device - if you put too much load on it, eventually it will sputter. Capacity though is hard to measure.
Honestly...all of these things can be learned by reading something on economics. I really wish economics was mandatory at the high school level.
5
Enjoy the moment - it will be brief. The Trade War has begun and the results will be a complete turnaround of what began during the 44th Administration and unemployment will rocket up again.
Trump is betting that he can, at the NATO meeting, force his will on all the other nations that trade with the USA and that his Trade War will have been a victory. Unfortunately, the recent wounds to ego's haven't healed, the animosity hasn't been resolved and many leaders think its time to teach Trump a lesson.
Of course Trump will blame the spike in unemployment on his rapidly growing list of enemies, but Americans are going to see prices go up, consumption drop, interest rates soar, and unemployment rates will go into double-digits.
Will his base blame him? Nope, they will accept Trumps explanation of it being somebody else's fault (just like he has done all of his life).
31
Agreed George, while nobody can predict the exact time, if Trump continues with his total trade war the end will come and it will not be pretty.
I still say he is a free trader and soon end all trade wars, get a few bones from China and western countries and declare the war won and announce that he is the greatest president since Lincoln.
Assuming the above paragraph is true what will do Trump in, at least economically is the massive deficit that is ballooning with his corporate welfare tax breaks to corporations and massive build up in defense spending.
2
We shall see, George. On the other hand, my view is that these bruised egos will either acquiesce to a more fair relationship with the USA or suffer a similar embarrassing demise as that stellar group of republican candidates experienced in the last presidential primary.
This president seems far less interested in the short game as he does in the long game. That is, short-term pain for long-term gain...