May payroll employment changes little (+69,000); jobless rate essentially unchanged (8.2%)

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION -- MAY 2012


Nonfarm payroll employment changed little in May (+69,000), and the unemployment rate
was essentially unchanged at 8.2 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported
today. Employment increased in health care, transportation and warehousing, and wholesale
trade but declined in construction. Employment was little changed in most other major
industries.

Household Survey Data

Both the number of unemployed persons (12.7 million) and the unemployment rate (8.2
percent) changed little in May. (See table A-1.)

Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (7.8 percent) and
Hispanics (11.0 percent) edged up in May, while the rates for adult women (7.4 percent),
teenagers (24.6 percent), whites (7.4 percent), and blacks (13.6 percent) showed little
or no change. The jobless rate for Asians was 5.2 percent in May (not seasonally
adjusted), down from 7.0 percent a year earlier. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.)

The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) rose from 5.1
to 5.4 million in May. These individuals accounted for 42.8 percent of the unemployed.
(See table A-12.)

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

---

This is far below the number I had heard given as an estimate on the radio this morning. ADP's estimate yesterday was that employment was up by 133,000 for May.

Related development. This article on stock futures went online in advance of the release of the BLS report. I don't think that the gist of the report will make the market turn around. It's Fox Business; deal with it.

Stock Futures Sell Off Ahead of Employment Report

What is important about these statistics is not so much this month’s number, but the trend. So let’s look at some earlier numbers. We’ll start with other estimates.

ADP, for employment in May:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014132307
May change in employment +133,000

BLS, for employment in April:

Payroll employment rises 115,000 in April; unemployment rate changes little (8.1%)

ADP and Gallup, for employment in April:

There were four related threads about the April jobs estimate at DU already. Three are in General Discussion, and they are based on the figures from ADP. The fourth, in LBN, paints a contrasting picture. It relies on the figures from Gallup.

Per CNBC - ADP Numbers bad, posted by Laura PourMeADrink

BAD: ADP JOBS REPORT MISSES EXPECTATIONS BY A MILE, posted by xchrom

ADP & TrimTabs Showing Much Weaker Payrolls Ahead of Unemployment Report, posted by marmar

U.S. Job Creation Nears Four-Year High, posted by brooklynite

There's a joke about economists in there somewhere.

March, BLS:

Payroll employment rises 120,000 in March; unemployment rate changes little (8.2%)

March, ADP:

Businesses Adding 209,000 New Jobs Last Month Fail To Ignite Market Rally

February, ADP:

ADP Estimates U.S. Companies Added 216,000 Jobs in February, posted by Gruntled Old Man.

Well, enough of that. On with the show.

Monthly Employment Reports

The large print giveth, and the fine print taketh away.

A DU'er pointed out several months ago 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 are those links.

Employment Situation

Table A-15. Alternative measures of labor underutilization

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.

[BeyondGeography]

1. Stinky

[OverDone]

3. Beyond Stinky

http://www.dailyjobcuts.com

Its beyond stinky, this recovery is not what they are telling us.

[BeyondGeography]

8. Well, there never has been a recovery

Many industries topped out revenue-wise in 2007 and haven't gotten close to it since. We're wounded; injured, can walk again, but still hobbled.

And it's an old story. Incomes were falling in real terms long before the paper top of 2007, which was fuelled by debt and supported by inflated asset values driven by the frothy top which has steadily consolidated its share of the wealth. How do you square that with a consumer-based economy where the total activity of the average Joe accounts for 2/3 of the action? You don't, and we haven't.

[NRaleighLiberal]

2. We don't make much any more....where would a recovery come from?

We are caught in a bad bind - the jobs paradigm is shifting, people don't get it, Obama could end up paying, Repub presidents make things worse, rinse, repeat.

We are doomed by those that don't take the time or have the depth to read about/understand what's going on....as well as by the so-called rich "job creators" who are doing what they can to NOT add jobs to try to ensure Romney gets in....all so totally screwed up.

[MannyGoldstein]

5. Give the Bush tax cuts some time

They're helping the job creators. You'll see. It will work.

[NRaleighLiberal]

6. Oh yes, indeed, absolutely.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

7. We can all get jobs spying on each other without warrants.

The sky's the limit; don't you know?

[Laura PourMeADrink]

10. do you know if individual company job creation numbers are published anywhere? nt

[Roland99]

4. Changes little? Yeah, because April *and* March were both revised downward.

69,000 isn't even *half* of what's needed for job gain/loss equilibrium.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

9. +1 Amazing that you pulled all this together! Great job.

Were reading through it - hoping to read your take on things, though.

I am sitting here, so disappointed and so scared all this will fuel Romney into the WH

What I am really wondering about is..how much of this is based on
an "under-the-table" agreement among big business republicans
to wait it out and not hire.

I was just thinking how this would make an excellent expose. Don't
even know if the data is available...but if you could find all the
top companies who have ties to big money republicans, see their
hiring numbers, along with their cash in the bank...bet it would be
very very interesting. wonder if ADP publishes the individual reports
submitted to them.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

16. Thanks. It's a trick though.

Last edited Fri Jun 1, 2012, 09:50 AM - Edit history (1)

The commentary is all cut and paste. I have a text file that is prepared well ahead of time. All I have to do is copy it into the commentary section, with a few remarks that apply to this month's report. I feel that background is extremely important in understanding these numbers. No explanation means no comprehension.

If you go to the table that takes into account how many people have given up looking for worse, the percentage of people not working goes up a lot. So even 8.2% is optimistic. Sorry.

I take pride in not taking sides with the report. Numbers are numbers. There are no progressive numbers, and there are no teabagger numbers. The numbers come into BLS, and the GS-whatevers there turn them into the report once a month, uplifting or not.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

26. Yes. Well, obviously the numbers suck and the trends suck. But, there are

reasons they shouldn't suck so bad.


I heard some economist say it all boils down to attitude. Things improve when all involved, business and individuals "think" things will get better.

I personally don't think we have recovered from the devastation caused by Paulson, Bush, and then Obama telling the world that things were going to hell in a handbasket in late 2008 and early 2009. They had to do that because it was true and then to get the stimulus in. But...by doing it, they also created a huge force that it has been impossible to fully recover from - the belief that things are not good. Once they did that, ALL businesses, froze staff. Then, their staff learned to do more with the same number of people. They are hiring now, but only a little at a time. congress could help, but there's that election thing. Plus constant negativism by republican candidates hurts too.

[newportdadde]

11. March and April were also revised down. April from115k to 77k.

I'm assuming that nice little bar chart we get to see after each job report includes the revisions down.

[SoFlaJet]

12. ..as republicans are dancing in the streets...

only in their cynical and twisted world could 70 thousand new jobs be construed as "failure'. The republicans took control of the House in 2010 with a 3 word mantra of "Jobs, jobs, jobs" but have refused to put up one single jobs bill. They have done everything they can do to sabotage the American economy, first by cutting as many state government jobs that they could in states that they control.

I have never seen it so bad in my 56 years living in this once great country. To THINK, that a party would do everything they could do to try and bring down the other party, regardless of the pain and suffering that it causes to 10's of millions of Americans is something that was simply out of the question-it could NEVER happen-well I was wrong.

We need to run these tea party assholes OUT of office in November and get control of the House, keep control of the senate and have Obama wipe the floor with the gutless, soulless, cretin that is Mitt Romney.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

13. Not looking forward to the inevitable RNC press release

gloating about how this just proves that Obama is a failure and that we need Romney/Republicans to "fix" things.

[rtracey]

14. 1/2 empty or 1/2 full

Well, yes jobs report is not up to snuff, but in the scheme of things, the jobs gain/loss table is still above zero. The country added 69,000 jobs, they didn't lose 69,000 jobs, don't celebrate a great win or a monumental achievement, but celebrate the fact that we are beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

[Proud Liberal Dem]

17. +1

Thanks for the morale boost. It's kind of hard to really get things back on track when a vocal minority in this country wants to obstruct/derail us so that they can regain power.

[coalition_unwilling]

25. ha-ha-ha - whatever. I blame Boner - n/t

[JayhawkSD]

29. Well, that's not a gain at all, though, and is beloe zero

Since it takes 125,000 new jobs to keep up with population growth. So that actually means another 56,000 people looking for work.

[sendero]

33. Thanks..

... for pointing out the obvious that the cheerleaders don't seem to grok.

[madrchsod]

15. oh no...the world is coming to an end!!!

jesus h christ the world is coming to an end because a drop in employment. i guess obama is finished!

i guess we`d better get used to a Romney Recovery!

the world has come to an end over at huffington. she`s got the world turning!

[coalition_unwilling]

24. Under Romney, we'll need to accustom ourselves to a new norm

of 15-20% unemployment. Anyone who dares question that norm will be sent to a re-education center.

[totodeinhere]

30. Of course the world isn't coming to an end.

But any objective observer should conclude that this is bad news. And just because there in a Democrat in the White House doesn't mean that we should not openly and frankly discuss bad news.

[JustAnotherGen]

18. Those construction jobs

Construction employment declined by 28,000 in May, with job losses occurring in specialty
trade contractors (-18,000) and in heavy and civil engineering construction (-11,000).
Since reaching a low in January 2011, employment in construction has shown little change
on net.

How many roads aren't being repaired? How many bridges crumble? How many people are not thinking to buy homes even though they can afford to?

And how many State (meaning of the 50) employees were laid off? Two friends in Ohio from my University days. Both are teachers. Neither one is going back to work next September.

[onehandle]

19. Fault ---> 10 Years of Republican Rule and a Present Do-Nothing Congress. nt

[DippyDem]

20. +1000

[IamK]

22. thats what the voters will decide.... blaming others is a tough sell @ election time.. n/t

[happynewyear]

38. add in the cost of all of these wars

= bankrupt nation.

[IamK]

21. time to dust off the "jobs saved" calcualtor.... n/t

[OverDone]

27. We still might

have a revised up from previous months.. ok maybe not

[coalition_unwilling]

23. DEAD . . . CAT . . . BOUNCE . . . - n/t

[JayhawkSD]

28. Interesting phrasing on that release

When the unemployment rate decreases by one tenth of a point, they say that the rate "dropped slightly."
When the unemployment rate rises by one tenth of a point, they say that the rate "changes little."
A little bit of cheerleading going on?
Not by the Obama administration, no, this is just government in action. Has been for decades.

[pinqy]

31. Untrue

From the April Numbers when the rate went from 8.2% to 8.1%, we have:

Both the number of unemployed persons (12.5 million) and the unemployment rate (8.1 percent) changed little in April.

So, no, no cheerleading.

[taught_me_patience]

32. Not a good report

The downward revisions to prior months were the worst part. It also looks like the global economy is slowing... led by Europe.

[mathematic]

34. I usually weigh in to correct bad spin but the negative spinners have stayed away today

Probably because the report was, to be charitable, underwhelming and required no negative spinning. Honestly, I did expect some gloating.

Maybe they stayed away because many of their usual metrics were actually good this month. Labor force, labor force participation, total employment, and the employment population ratio all showed significant gains. The number not in the labor force significantly declined. Oh who knows.

[coalition_unwilling]

35. Wait, you're saying this is a good report? If so, we must inhabit alternate

universes. These aren't even enough jobs to keep up with natural growth in the labor force.

The question is: who gets the blame? Obama who proposed a $450 billion Jobs Act last September that was killed by Congress or a Congress that campaigned in 2010 on "Jobs, Jobs, Jobs" and didn't put forward a single jobs bill.

I blame Boner, Cantor and Ryan,with an honorable mention to Mitch McChinless McConnell.

[mathematic]

36. No, I'm not saying this is a good report.

I'm saying that the talking points often used to say other, good reports are bad would indicate that this report is a good report. It IS true that the things I listed improved. Just sorta wondering where all the "but the number of people not in the labor force increased!" people are this month.

As for the "natural growth" of the labor force... there's no need to model such a thing. We actually measure the size of the labor force each month. You can go ahead and take a look at how the size of the labor force changes from month to month. No rule of thumb required.

[happynewyear]

37. yup

This is what you get with 8 years of *. The results are astounding really ... truly and example of that good old "trickle down". How's the recovery going now pukes?

There is no "recovery".

Two or three bogus wars will do that to a country. Yup.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

39. The "U-6 Number"

Judson Phillips of Tea Party Nation was on Tom Hartmann Friday night. He kept referring to the "U-6 Number." That can be found in Table A15. It is "Total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force." It appears in two forms, seasonally adjusted and non-seasonally adjusted. Either way, it is the least optimistic of all the estimates.