Jobs Numbers for the Optimists, the Pessimists, and Everybody in Between

When I read articles about employment and wage statistics I usually have more questions than answers. Here I am wondering how many new jobs created were second jobs taken on by lower wage earners? How do the manufacturing employment figures account for the thousands of GM workers on strike? How much impact on wage gains are attributable to the laws increasing the minimum wage in many cities and states? Are there certain geographic areas (urban areas, the coasts) that account for the majority of economic gains or loses?

If we were to simply look at the data, yes many Americans are employed. However, I find it appalling how many people are not looking into the factors of this employment not having a positive impact on our economy. The saying "quality over quantity" is something to keep in mind, with the boom of the "gig economy" and jobs that only require you to know how to drive and use a smart phone our nation is clearly underemployed. I have encountered this almost every day, I get into a shared-cab typically Uber or Lyft and most likely than not the individual is someone who is wither in-between jobs or struggling to seek employment. Driving for these apps just on the weekends is still considered employed, but most of these individuals are much more capable and possess skills that can actually be used to boost the production of our nation.

I know a number of people who've been out of work for over 2 years. Those out longer have mostly given up looking if they're over 50. Some who've lost jobs took that long to find another - at best paying half what they had been earning. Some couldn't even collect unemployment after getting severance. More than a few people in their 50's are taking 'early retirement' from banks and financial institutions. Major employers are slashing staff by THOUSANDS. Mall vacancies are at all time highs and I'm seeing empty storefronts in affluent villages along the Metro North lines (last seen after 2008). My youngest just got a job offer at a little over half what I was offered after graduation 40 years ago. In similar fields he went to a better school, had better grades and more experience AND had a MS on top of his BS degree. If salaries had kept up with inflation, he 'd be making 3 1/2 times my old starting salary - instead he's making about half of that with worse benefits. Note. A subway token cost 50 cents 40 years ago. A fare costs $2.75 now. Others getting out of college are willingly working unpaid 'internships' simply to get their feet in the door. If you count discouraged workers and underemployed workers we have an unemployment rate that's around 22%. It's been at that level since 2009. It would be nice if the media called government on their statistics.

Imagine there's a pumpkin being grown for the State Fair. For the first seven or eight weeks your wife takes care of it. She Waters it and fertilize is it and it grows steadily. Then three weeks before the fair you come in through your special brand of fertilizer around the plant and watch it continue to grow just like it has before. Then you harvest it and take it to the State Fair and it's the biggest pumpkin there at which point you proceeded to claim that it's all due to you. Pretty sure your wife might be a little pissed. Well that's essentially what Trump is doing and I promise you there are plenty of us out here who no he doesn't deserve the credit.

I certainly support stay at home parents being paid more than stay at home millionaires who add nothing to society.

Surely Irwin is aware that the low unemployment rate reflects in part the low proportion of theoretically employable adults actually in the job market. And most of the growth in employment is among those over 65, particularly those 75 and older, who for the most part likely cannot afford to retire. Some postive!!!

Under Obama, a job gain of 144,000 jobs was called "terrible": "The new numbers are poor on pretty much every level. American employers added a mere 142,000 jobs last month" https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/03/upshot/what-the-terrible-september-jobs-report-means-for-the-economy.html But now, a gain of 133,000 jobs ( last I checked, 133 was lower than 144 ), gets the low-bar treatment: "Well, the 136,000 jobs added in September are about what you want to see" The term I use to describe this phenomenon is "adjective fraud", and it's been happening for years

Well written, as the old adage goes, figures don't lie but liars figure.

Neil Irwin has pinpointed the obvious reason why unemployment is currently at historic lows while GDP growth is quite low: demographic change. About 10,000 boomers retire every day and the cohort just entering the job market is a smaller percentage of the overall job market than in previous generations. FED studies indicate that demographics alone is responsible for about a 1% reduction in GDP growth. US replacement levels, for both population and jobs, is in negative territory. Japan entered these conditions more than a decade ago, so we should be looking at how they’ve fared for clues to effective policy. And we should also realize that decreasing the level of immigration is a sure way to grow even more slowly. To hear Trump crowing about the current levels of unemployment is reminiscent of the rooster who thinks he causes the sun to rise. Trump, like the rooster, is a product of his environment with little effect on its workings. It’s the demographics stupid.

The U6 unemployment rate for September 2019 was 6.9% - the lowest on record except for a few months in 2000. This includes not only people that gave up looking for work, but those with one or more part time jobs that want full time work. Anybody in the U.S. that wants a job and can pass a drug test can get a job. Black and Hispanic unemployment are at record lows - Trump is the best thing that happened to minorities in this country since the 1964 Civil Rights Act. He did this by scaring employers into firing their unauthorized workers (i.e illegal aliens) and despite taking on China's business practices - IP theft, forced partnership for market access, and on and on. https://www.macrotrends.net/1377/u6-unemployment-rate

Should we question the truthfulness of these job numbers in light of a White House staff that only wants to placate and do the bidding of POTUS. You can be sure that if it was another administration with positive job numbers, Mr. Trump would be saying “I don’t believe these numbers. People have been saying that the deep state has been cooking the books...”

This is because most have to work multiple part time jobs to pay their bills. Part time is not included in this calculation. NYT, do your homework before leading with this headline.

“Parts of the American Economy are in trouble...” Well then, there you go. At least there’s some good economic news for NY Times readers.

"The slowing wage growth paired with low unemployment is a genuine conundrum.' The vaunted tech sector, the supposed driver of the new economy, now & in the future, doesn't employ many people. The manufacturing sector was outsourced, along with the high paying jobs it provided. No conundrum, a service economy has replaced the productive middle class with blue collars turned a few shades paler.

Neil, Dont' confuse a lower increase with a decrease: "but over the last six months the sector has added an average of only 3,000 jobs a month, down from 22,000 a month in 2018. America’s factories are slowing down,..." Manufacturing is still adding people, still expanding, just at a slower rate than before. I"ll take an average of 36000 new manufacturing jobs a year any day. Much better than it was. I wonder if the slow down in wage growth has more do to with the fact that the bump in minimum wage from various States has already been factored in.

Wrong again! Economic fundamental benchmarks can be dressed down or up, depending on who is wringing their hands. Fearless leader is claiming a raging economy and hugely awesome employment numbers. Dive deep on those employment numbers and they're not so awesome. Especially payrolls and wages, which have not been very impressive for decades. If we look at supposedly growing sectors, such as STEM, more specifically software-related professions, we see a much higher unemployment rate than the one the snake oil salesmen are selling us. Which points to the aspect that many of the 'new' jobs are lower paying, low and semi-skilled labor. Looking back at 2016, Trump promised major job expansion in both mining and manufacturing, two of three major employment sectors to be receding in a 'huge' way. Still the low unemployment number is impressive, but don't be fooled. It's not the product of our current hyperbolist living at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. or even the prior administration. Neither have done much to directly influence the labor markets. No, I would float the theory that the world's largest economy has enough momentum behind it to grow the jobs market organically during the longest running recovery on record. That is, demand in certain areas is high enough to drive employment up. Of course, with a raging trade war, impeachment and record Federal debt, we are just a breath away from another reset.

I am not an ecoomist and have only a weak understanding of economics. But I wonder if the structure of the post-2000 labor market helps explain the lack of relation between the low unemployment rates and low earnings. What percentage of the retail market, e.g., is employed full-time and part-time? And in manufacturing? One strategy of employers was to cut working hours so as to stack workers into the p-t category, and thereby minimize benefits. Has this changed with the employment expansion? It would be interesting to see data that reflects these trends. I think somewhere there is a leakage in the traditional labor model that explains this relationship. It would also be interesting to see these percentages for major employers: Walmart, Amazon, Google, Microsoft. The major retailers and also the headliners in the stock indices.

A better analysis is to look at any data set over time and graph the trends. Unemployment rates has had the same downward trend for a decade, regardless of whether it is U3 or U6. Job creation numbers have been gyrating around the mean for the past 9 years but the last year has been below the mean. Labor force participation picked up in the last decade but just barely. It is only 3% higher than the mean. Manufacturing is definitely slowing. Long term wages for the bottom 80% have barely moved over the past three decades. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/. What is apparent is unemployment rates have most likely plateaued and won't go lower. Whether presidential policies are responsible is weak for either Obama or Trump compared to influence of the strength of the overall economic cycle.

I would like to know what the job growth was YOY by income quintile. I will bet much of the rise in income over the past year was concentrated in areas where the minimum wage increases were mandated by law and were impacted by the new overtime wage cap. As we get closer to the point when these increases are near full rollout, the wage growth will just go back to where they were before: anemic. The reality is that with the DOL in the hands of apparatchiks hostile to labor laws, I fail to see how wage growth would resume after that initial spurt.

it's not about job wages, it's about the lack of benifits

Trump the candidate insisted the unemployment statistics were ‘fake’ and that Barack Obama was a ‘disaster’ for those seeking work. Now the same statistics are the gold standard and the direct result of his business acumen. The 3.5% unemployment rate ought to be taken with a grain of salt. Movements of a fraction of a percentage point one way or the other are relatively meaningless. The numbers that ought to cause somewhat severe heartburn are the continuing holding pattern in wages, the decline in the manufacturing sector and the paltry new jobs being added — under 120,000 this go round after years of averaging around 175,000 to 200,000 per month, part of a downward trend over the past year or so. And that job growth is now being propped up in part by employment in local and state government; not solely growth in the private sector. All is not well in the Trumpian Magic Kingdom. But he no doubt will continue to brag about the ‘fabulous, fantastic, historic economy’ and take all the credit for it; except when forced to admit things are not so rosy, in which case others will be to blame, like the 'incompetent Fed' and the ‘socialist Democrat Party.’ Or the space aliens that speak to him by sending radio signals through his dental fillings.

Another precedent is apparently being set: a headline re the (amazing) 3.5 % unemployment rate, the lowest in 50 years, that includes in it the potential dark sides of that very low rate. I hope to see that precedent followed during the next Administration, whoever it might be.

It seems that for the past few months the real numbers are lowered about 6-8 weeks later. Assume these Sep numbers are lowered to 110k. what does that say? The world economy is heading for disaster due to trade wars.

Why is that the majority of the population has to work more than one job that drives the unemployment rate low seen as a good thing?

Not so sure that the 22,000 government jobs really help the economy as they will need pensions generous benefits the average worker does not get. But pays for the Government employees to retire early or go out on disability.

I personally know the Dept, of Labor tweaks every bit of data it presents from the very lowest levels of its bureaucracy to its highest and ignores or minimizes the effects of any data that makes their bosses or POTUS look ineffective. Without getting into sensitive issues, the DOL purposely ignores the numbers of workers lost to the economy because government agencies and businesses force older workers to retire or just plain quit due to abhorrent policies and management behavior. When older highly-qualified workers, now a majority in America, are harrassed into retirement or quitting to "make room" for younger poorly qualified people who the older workers could be training, there is no gain - in fact, it is an irreversible loss. Why would older workers want to continue to be harrassed when they can retire, at public expense by the way, and mow their lawns and watch the sun set? Wisdom does not necessarily come with age (just look at the current POTUS) but, more often than not, it does. Additionally, health issues associated with age are rapidly being overcome thereby extending useful working lives. The government recognizes this to a degree by continually increasing the Social Security eligibility age - take a look for yourself if you don't believe me. At the same time, younger workers are more likely to find any excuse to miss a day or five nowadays. Why not? They still get paid. All these facts and more are overtaxing a struggling economy and DOL is lying about it.

The issue about statistics , in an era of AI and meta data analysis capability, we should get much deeper details. I do not contest the legitimacy of the statistics like all other conspiracy theorist. But One should know that every statistic has its limit of power and accuracy. Statistics with AI must achieve much deeper analysis, that requires much detailed data collection. Business must oblige to deliver these data to government and they must spend money on it. This may increase our foresight and prediction capacity. We are not in 20th century anymore.

In the 1980's both parties learned it was far easier to manipulate statistics than deal with the very real problems they highlighted. REAL unemployment has been over 20% since 2009 using metrics from the 1980's. It has been as high as 23% - the peak of the Great Depression. Wages have fallen far behind inflation. See shadowstats and other sources of data. Positive employment numbers are routinely adjusted lower with little fanfare. Government stats are more a public relations effort than reporting of reality. Labor force participation remains low with many people having given up looking for work. Many are working part time jobs instead of full time. More are working jobs at far lower salaries than they had in the past. You've had a huge wave of layoffs for those in their 40's and 50's. Some of my neighbors (in middle class burbs) have been out of work for years. Those that did manage to get work are making far less than they had been. Whole industries have been decimated - with mass layoffs continuing despite this supposedly 'good' economy. Publishing and banking are cutting. Recent grads are often working as unpaid interns (illegal by the way) simply to get their foot in the door. Empty storefronts are common - even in affluent villages around NY. Big companies are folding all over. Inflation has been double digit in major cities for a decade using realistic indexes of commonly bought goods. GNP has been negative when you factor in real inflation.

The unemployment rate is not a reliable way to gauge the general level of employment. It has many flaws that don't take into account important factors about employment and wages. Just because someone is employed under the official criteria in the unemployment rate doesn't mean that they have a good job. People at the bottom often have two or more jobs just to get by. The actual living wage employment is in bad shape. Overall wages have fallen. Housing costs are up. Child care costs a fortune. They have no savings because it has already been wiped out or they just don't have enough money that they can afford to save. One unforeseen expense like car repair or illness could render them homeless.

Rising wages? I haven’t gotten a raise in 3 years.

You need to ex-census the data. The Unemployment rate is at 3.8%.

A very quick look at today's BLS jobs report shows that hourly wages for "production and nonsupervisory" private sector employees grew by 3.5% over the 12 mo. period (Table B-8), while that for "all" private sector employees grew 2.9% (Table B-3). Mr. Irwin only notes the latter. The "all" figure includes much higher-paid employees, and the average wage for "all" is a lot higher ($28.09 vs. 23.65), which includes high managerial wages, probably some astronomically higher ones depending on the luck of the sampling. Nevertheless, the wages for "production and nonsupervisory" employees (i.e. what we think of as "workers") have recently been increasing at a higher rate than typical managers. Maybe workers are finally in a better bargaining position, and could exert more pressure in the future. It would be nice if the regular BLS report provided a separate table for those not covered in B-8. Then we could more easily get an idea of how much inequality of wages there are, as well as changes in wage inequality over time.

Average job growth ---------------------------------------- Obama's Second Term: 217,000 Trump First Term: 189,000 This month: 133,000 Drop in unemployment rate ---------------------------------- Obama's second term: 3% Trump First term: 1.2% I recall Republicans calling Obama's second term a disaster for jobs, but his record is clearly better

The economy since 2010 ------------------------------- Obama: Touchdown Trump: Extra Point

Is there much in the way of independent review of these statistics - review by organizations not involved with producing the numbers? Seems to me, if so much of this doesn't make sense, that maybe the numbers aren't right. I saw jobs numbers revised downward some months later without a lot of fanfare. Given the current administration's penchant for lying without batting an eyelash, can we really trust any of these numbers without independent review?

The baby boomers are bust. It is time that we move the top scale of prime age workers from 55 to 62, the earliest that workers can collect SS. In many a NYT column we read lots of comments on those over 55 who have been downsized and if they can find new jobs they are not getting wages anywhere close to what the had before. They data presented today is based on an aging and incomplete metric. That metric needs to change. Out of necessity the fast growing working age cohort is 75 .

“ That is a very surprising thing to see given the ultralow unemployment rate. Things are supposed to work the other way around.” Well, that's how it's SUPPOSED to work in a genuine capitalist economy. That's not how it REALLY works in our neo-feudalist system, in which a ruling class of ultra-rich individuals and ultra-large corporations is able to manipulate government and markets for the aristocracy's exclusive benefit.

Interesting ... wages are "up" 2.9%. But the CPI inflation rate is running around 1.7%, and some say there are other significant costs not reflected. But let's say a net of 1.2%. The average US wage is about $62,000, although that is heavily affected by the high end wages. SO that works out to a net of $744. Two bucks a day. Whhoooo hooooo.