Breaking: May Employment Report Up 248,000

[TheWebHead]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. employers added an unexpectedly large 248,000 jobs in May, according to a government report on Friday that confirmed a strengthening economy likely to soon bring higher interest rates.
The May tally exceeded Wall Street expectations for 216,000 new jobs and followed an upwardly revised total of 346,000 jobs in April and 353,000 in March. The 947,000 jobs created in the March-May period made it the strongest for any three months in four years.

The cascading evidence of accelerating economic activity is certain to reinforce expectations that Federal Reserve policymakers will ratchet U.S. interest rates up from current 46-year lows when they meet June 29-30 and may prove a boon to election-bound President Bush.

more...

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=businessNews&storyID=5346003

[Trajan]

1. Hmmmm ....

NUMEROUS reports of layoffs, by the thousands ....

NOW: a great leap UPWARD of jobs ? ... WHERE the fuck ARE these jobs ?

I dont believe it: not one minute ...

Show me the proof ....

Edit:

Link to a previous thread: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=547329

Robbien (1000+ posts) Tue May-11-04 11:30 AM
Original message
What are they Smoking at the Labor Dept? (Jobs numbers are made up)


I'm not going to waste a lot of my precious space on this, but the bottom line is that most of the 288,000 jobs that the Labor Department says were created last month may not really exist.

They could be figments of statisticians' optimism.

Anyone who plodded through my column last Thursday knows I predicted that job growth in April would be better than the 160,000 to 170,000 jobs that the "pros" were anticipating.

But I also said, quite emphatically I hope, that the stronger growth would be an illusion - the result of the Labor Department's computers making happy predictions about seasonal job creation that could neither be verified nor justified.

I'll explain one aspect. Back in the March employment report, the government added 153,000 positions to its revised total of 337,000 new jobs because it thought (but couldn't prove) loads of new companies were being created in this economy.

http://www.nypost.com/business/23936.htm

(So in the last two months 270,000 jobs have been added to the Labor Jobs numbers due to this estimation of jobs not verified)

[Tellurian]

28. I was thinking the same thing, Trajan..

There hasn't been any visible effort by the Bush Administration to stem the volume of the outsourcing of jobs overseas. As far as job creation, that has been a dead end as well. The figures reflected in the latest report seem to be skewed in that deductions for current job loss haven't been made to reflect an accurate quarterly plus or minus total.

Moreso, the report seems to be an excuse for the announcement of forthcoming higher interest rates at the end of June.

[Cooley Hurd]

2. How many are govt & McJobs?

:shrug:

[TheWebHead]

8. it's actually a pretty good #

avg. hourly up .3%, or 3.6% annualized indicating healthy wage growth, though not too high to spur unhealthy levels of inflation.

[papau]

16. I agree - pretty good - but "pretend" part-time jobs again are the reason

non adjusted part time April 19,000 May 19,621
Seasonally adjusted part time April 18,664 May 19,220
But birth/death model only added 195000 jobs! So can we say full time employment dropped !! But I agree the report in total is rather good!

http://www.bls.gov/web/cesbd.htm

2004 Net Birth/Death Adjustment (in thousands) Supersector Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Total -321 115 153 270 195


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

Technical information:
Household data: [phone] USDL 04-996
http://www.bls.gov/cps/

Establishment data: 691-6555 Transmission of material in this release
http://www.bls.gov/ces/ is embargoed until 8:30 A.M. (EDT),
Media contact: 691-5902 Friday, June 4, 2004.


THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION: MAY 2004

Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 248,000 in May, and the unemployment
rate was unchanged at 5.6 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S.
Department of Labor reported today. The May increase in payroll employment
follows gains of 346,000 in April and 353,000 in March (as revised). Job
growth in May again was widespread, as increases continued in construction,
manufacturing, and several service-providing industries.

Unemployment (Household Survey Data)

The number of unemployed persons was essentially unchanged at 8.2 million
in May, and the unemployment rate held at 5.6 percent. The unemployment rate
has been either 5.6 or 5.7 percent in each month since December 2003. The
unemployment rates for the major worker groups--adult men (5.2 percent), adult
women (4.8 percent), teenagers (17.2 percent), whites (5.0 percent), blacks
(9.9 percent), and Hispanics or Latinos (7.0 percent)--were little changed in
May. The unemployment rate for Asians was 4.2 percent, not seasonally ad-
justed. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.)

Total Employment and the Labor Force (Household Survey Data)

Total employment was 138.8 million in May, and the employment-population
ratio--the proportion of the population age 16 and over with jobs--remained
at 62.2 percent. The civilian labor force participation rate was 65.9 per-
cent for the fourth consecutive month. (See table A-1.)

Persons Not in the Labor Force (Household Survey Data)

The number of persons who were marginally attached to the labor force was
1.5 million in May, about the same as a year earlier. (Data are not season-
ally adjusted.) These individuals wanted and were available to work and had
looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as
unemployed, however, because they did not actively search for work in the 4
weeks preceding the survey. There were 476,000 discouraged workers in May,
also about the same as a year earlier. Discouraged workers, a subset of the
marginally attached, were not currently looking for work specifically because
they believed no jobs were available for them. The other 1.1 million margin-
ally attached had not searched for work for reasons such as school or family
responsibilities. (See table A-13.)

- 2 -

Table A. Major indicators of labor market activity, seasonally adjusted
(Numbers in thousands)
______________________________________________________________________________
| Quarterly | |
| averages | Monthly data |
|_________________|__________________________| Apr.-
Category | 2003 | 2004 1/| 2004 | May
|________|________|__________________________|change
| IV | I | Mar. | Apr. | May |
_________________________|________|________|________|________|________|_______
HOUSEHOLD DATA | Labor force status
|____________________________________________________
Civilian labor force.....| 146,986| 146,661| 146,650| 146,741| 146,974| 233
Employment.............| 138,369| 138,388| 138,298| 138,576| 138,772| 196
Unemployment...........| 8,616| 8,273| 8,352| 8,164| 8,203| 39
Not in labor force.......| 75,290| 75,695| 75,900| 76,016| 75,993| -23
|________|________|________|________|________|_______
| Unemployment rates
|____________________________________________________
All workers..............| 5.9| 5.6| 5.7| 5.6| 5.6| 0.0
Adult men..............| 5.5| 5.1| 5.2| 5.0| 5.2| .2
Adult women............| 5.1| 5.0| 5.1| 5.0| 4.8| -.2
Teenagers..............| 16.3| 16.6| 16.5| 16.9| 17.2| .3
White..................| 5.1| 5.0| 5.1| 4.9| 5.0| .1
Black or African | | | | | |
American.............| 10.7| 10.1| 10.2| 9.7| 9.9| .2
Hispanic or Latino | | | | | |
ethnicity............| 7.1| 7.4| 7.4| 7.2| 7.0| -.2
|________|________|________|________|________|_______
ESTABLISHMENT DATA | Employment
|____________________________________________________
Nonfarm employment.......| 130,002| 130,367| 130,630|p130,976|p131,224| p248
Goods-producing 2/.....| 21,676| 21,719| 21,778| p21,830| p21,902| p72
Construction.........| 6,766| 6,819| 6,853| p6,872| p6,909| p37
Manufacturing........| 14,340| 14,326| 14,344| p14,373| p14,405| p32
Service-providing 2/...| 108,326| 108,648| 108,852|p109,146|p109,322| p176
Retail trade.........| 14,915| 14,974| 15,013| p15,041| p15,060| p19
Professional and | | | | | |
business services..| 16,114| 16,202| 16,237| p16,367| p16,431| p64
Education and health | | | | | |
services...........| 16,705| 16,774| 16,813| p16,852| p16,896| p44
Leisure and | | | | | |
hospitality........| 12,172| 12,239| 12,271| p12,313| p12,353| p40
Government...........| 21,549| 21,540| 21,553| p21,574| p21,547| p-27
|________|________|________|________|________|_______
| Hours of work 3/
|____________________________________________________
Total private............| 33.7| 33.8| 33.8| p33.8| p33.8| p0.0
Manufacturing..........| 40.6| 41.0| 40.9| p40.7| p41.1| p.4
Overtime.............| 4.4| 4.6| 4.6| p4.6| p4.7| p.1
|________|________|________|________|________|_______
| Indexes of aggregate weekly hours (2002=100) 3/
|____________________________________________________
Total private............| 98.7| 99.3| 99.5| p99.9| p100.2| p0.3
|________|________|________|________|________|_______
| Earnings 3/
|____________________________________________________
Avg. hourly earnings, | | | | | |
total private..........| $15.45| $15.52| $15.55| p$15.59| p$15.64| p$0.05
Avg. weekly earnings, | | | | | |
total private..........| 520.55| 524.58| 525.59| p526.94| p528.63| p1.69
_________________________|________|________|________|________|________|_______

1 Beginning in January 2004, household data reflect revised population
controls used in the Current Population Survey.
2 Includes other industries, not shown separately.
3 Data relate to private production or nonsupervisory workers.
p=preliminary.
- 3 -

Industry Payroll Employment (Establishment Survey Data)

Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 248,000 in May to 131.2 million,
seasonally adjusted. Since its recent low in August 2003, payroll employment
has risen by 1.4 million; 947,000 of this increase occurred over the last 3
months. Job growth was widespread in May, with gains continuing in construc-
tion, manufacturing, and several service-providing industries. (See table
B-1.)

In May, construction employment increased by 37,000, with most of the gain
occurring in specialty trade contracting and the construction of buildings.
Since March 2003, the construction industry has added about a quarter-million
jobs.

Manufacturing employment grew by 32,000 in May. Since January, manufactur-
ing as added 91,000 jobs, mostly in its durable goods component. In May, em-
ployment rose in three construction-related manufacturing industries: fabri-
cated metal products, wood products, and nonmetallic mineral products (such
as concrete and cement). Employment also increased in computer and electronic
products.

Mining employment continued to rise in May. Since January, the industry
has added 18,000 jobs.

In the service-providing sector, professional and business services added
64,000 jobs in May. Employment in temporary help services continued to rise
(31,000) and has grown by 299,000 (or 14 percent) since April 2003.

Strong employment increases in health care and social assistance continued
in May with a gain of 36,000. Over the year, this industry has added 274,000
jobs. Hospitals and ambulatory health care services, such as outpatient care
centers, accounted for two-thirds of May's employment gain.

Within the leisure and hospitality industry, food services added 33,000 jobs
over the month. Since the beginning of the year, employment in food services
has increased by an average of 32,000 a month, more than double the average
monthly increase in 2003.

Employment in financial activities rose by 15,000 in May, reflecting con-
tinued increases in real estate and in credit intermediation. Retail employ-
ment continued to trend upward in May; over the year, the industry has added
142,000 jobs. Within retail trade, employment edged up in May in building
material and garden supply stores, food and beverage stores, and clothing
stores. Wholesale trade employment also edged up in May; the industry has
added 55,000 jobs since October 2003.

In the information sector, telecommunications employment was down by 5,000
in May. Since its peak in March 2001, the telecommunications industry has shed
283,000 jobs, a fifth of its total.

- 4 -

Weekly Hours (Establishment Survey Data)

The average workweek for production or nonsupervisory workers on private
nonfarm payrolls was unchanged in May at 33.8 hours, seasonally adjusted. The
manufacturing workweek increased by 0.4 hour to 41.1 hours, more than offset-
ting declines in March and April. Manufacturing overtime edged up by 0.1 hour
to 4.7 hours in May. (See table B-2.)

The index of aggregate weekly hours of production or nonsupervisory workers
on private nonfarm payrolls increased by 0.3 percent in May to 100.2 (2002=100).
The manufacturing index was up by 1.3 percent over the month to 95.5. (See
table B-5.)

Hourly and Weekly Earnings (Establishment Survey Data)

Average hourly earnings of production or nonsupervisory workers on private
nonfarm payrolls rose by 5 cents in May to $15.64, seasonally adjusted. Aver-
age weekly earnings were up by 0.3 percent over the month to $528.63. Over
the year, average hourly earnings grew by 2.2 percent, and average weekly earn-
ings increased by 2.5 percent. (See table B-3.)


______________________________


The Employment Situation for June 2004 is scheduled to be released on Friday,
July 2, at 8:30 A.M. (EDT).

Category

May Apr. May May Jan. Feb. Mar. Apr. May
2003 2004 2004 2003 2004 2004 2004 2004 2004


CLASS OF WORKER PERSONS AT WORK PART TIME (2)

All industries:
Part time for economic reasons......... 4,409 4,411 4,427 4,610 4,714 4,437 4,733 4,574 4,665
Slack work or business conditions.... 2,915 2,745 2,673 3,069 2,996 2,865 3,011 2,819 2,853
Could only find part-time work....... 1,218 1,429 1,427 1,264 1,380 1,347 1,427 1,439 1,467
Part time for noneconomic reasons...... 19,363 19,568 20,015 19,073 18,905 18,900 19,006 19,000 19,62118,664 19,220



Nonagricultural industries:
Part time for economic reasons......... 4,298 4,325 4,370 4,498 4,613 4,328 4,622 4,471 4,605
Slack work or business conditions.... 2,849 2,687 2,631 3,012 2,911 2,778 2,927 2,756 2,812
Could only find part-time work....... 1,189 1,419 1,424 1,236 1,399 1,340 1,414 1,431 1,476
Part time for noneconomic reasons...... 19,004 19,263 19,680 18,653 18,636 18,691 18,693 18,664 19,220

[Frodo]

20. With respect

You are still misreading that report. And now it looks like you're comparing adjusted and non-adjusted numbers like it's apples to apples.

The Part time numbers you are citing do not impact the number of people hired in the last month. You can't look at changes in that number and conclude "full time employment went down". Applying the same logic to some previous months would make it look like FT employment had increased by 600k. This has simply not happened.

[papau]

38. Thought I used Seasonal on both? And why do you say that I can't

conclude "full time employment went down" ?

If a total has the numbers that make up the sub totals change, a change in one of the sub totals must be offset by a change in some other sub total.

Part Time and Full time seem to cover the universe of "employed"

So as the Total does not go up as much as "part Time" goes UP, then Full time must go down.

But in any case thanks for responding to the post - the more these are discussed the better they will be understood - by ME!

:-)

[Frodo]

40. Sorry, no.

Yes, if "A+B=C" and you know A&C, you can conclude that you know "B".

The problem is that the number you've been looking at ISN'T the "number of Part-Time employees". So you DON'T have "A". You have an entirely different number that is not related to the FT/PT ratio of employment.




As for adjust vs. non-adjusted. I may have just misunderstood the first part of your post. I thought that's what you said. I think it was a formatting thing.

[papau]

43. True but part time was steady except for the birth death - or at least I

thought I saw that.

And birth death is part of part time

granted it was not exact - but the Full Time being less I thought was a solid conclusion.

[Frodo]

44. Can you tell me which number you're looking at?

I should be able to clear it up. What category are you using as a count of "total aprt-time employees"?

[papau]

67. Series A- table A5

indeed - full time employment may well have gone down!

[Media_Lies_Daily]

29. What you won't find in the report is the number of people that dropped...

...off the unemployment rolls because their unemployment insurance ran out.

And how many of those jobs were created as part of an outsourcing effort?

[Frodo]

31. We're not all the way back to THAT are we?

I though we killed that issue in December.

Neither the unemployment rate from the Household survey nor the employment number from the Establishemnt survey are impacted by whether someones benefits have run out.

So yeah, I guess you could truthfully say you "won't find (them) in the report"


I am, however, interested in your second point. What's the impact of a job being created as part of an outsourcing effort? Wouldn't that be a net "zero"? "Job leaves Sears and joins ABC" = no "new" jobs, right? Or am I missing something?

[Beatrix]

58. What's wrong with Mcjobs?

Some of us actually have them you know... and they're not so bad.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

63. Can't live on a McJob in Boston, or save money, or afford rent

maybe you can in Topeka...

[Birthmark]

3. That's super!

I wonder if they'll double our chocolate rations again, too?! Big Brother is nice!!

[Uben]

4. n/t

where's the link?

[Tempest]

5. New claims for unemployment: 339,000

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=businessNews&storyID=5334310

[Spentastic]

6. Entirely possible

What's that 28000 above break even? Hardly brilliant. Pterry short of the 2 million promised. Falling back from last month?

[Malva Zebrina]

7. Robert Reich talking about this on AAR morning sedition

very clear

[Mel]

18. and we are still 2 million jobs short

that were lost under Bush and the income gap is the largest it's ever been since the 1890's since we've been keeping records (did I get that right Marianne) the new jobs aren't good ones either according to Reich they are lower paying jobs with no health care.

[tritsofme]

42. We are now -1,164,000 short, not 2 million. nt

[TahitiNut]

39. BELOW AVERAGE jobs growth is being touted as "good" - Bullshit!

These people are disgusting. In the same lifetime pattern, DimSon proclaims his "below average" performance as some sort of virtue.

There are STILL far fewer people employed than when this Cabal took over. There are still about TEN MILLION fewer people employed than would be the case if the average growth rate from the past 50 years were achieved.

[ixion]

9. funny... you only hear about layoffs... but in some magical neocon reality

there are happy slave jobs for everyone, and everyone thinks * is a person of moral clarity... oh yeah, and no one asks silly questions about jobs or the economy or WMD's. They just stare slack-jawed at the monkey king. just like pickles. :eyes:

[Trajan]

10. We have YET to see any sort of wholesale HIRING in the news ...

ONLY job loss: yet they offer these cockamanie anecdotes and fantasies as 'news' ....

Worse yet: there are those in DU who suck up the bitter vetch, and call it ambrosia ....

QED some posts on this thread ....

[Trailrider1951]

11. Yup, they've opened a BUNCH of new Walmarts here in Houston. n/t

[Birthmark]

12. What's really cute is that...

...a quick look at the BLS shows that the civilian workforce increased by 399,000 in May. ;)

[Trajan]

13. Chuckles ....

Diebold provided the Job-Counting Computers at Labor ...

I believe it: dont you ?? ...

wasnt that 1,818,181 new jobs ???

[Birthmark]

15. I'm not sure what I believe anymore.

I used to take these numbers as gospel, more or less. Now, there are supposedly all these jobs being created, but I don't know of anyone who is actually benefitting from them. I know several that are unemployed and have been for some time. These numbers just don't seem to reflect the reality that I see around me.

If these numbers are correct, then sooner or later I'll see the results. If these numbers are a fantasy, then sooner or later a breaking point will be reached. I guess I'll just have to wait and see. For now, I'm rather skeptical.

[Don_G]

14. Just Don't Forget

That the Secretary Of Labor is Elaine Chao--Mitch McConnell's wife--and the two of them put Limbaugh and Hannity to shame with their fanatical, brown-nosed devotion to the GOP.

[SEpatriot]

17. It doesn't matter how many new McJobs they "create"

especially when the people who get them have no real purchasing power or are too far behind to get out of the hole they're already in. These "analysts" who spend so much time talking about jobs numbers need to spend some time with me at the Bankruptcy courts and see what's happening to people who are working.

The real story still is this - even if you have a job, you're getting the crap kicked out of you by debt, lack of services, inflation and increases in local taxes due to the irresponsible corporate and millionaire giveaways of the Bush adminstration.

[VolcanoJen]

37. I agree 100%, SEpatriot!

I work in a "trickle-down" industry, and believe me, it's not trickling down. It's gotten worse. It's really been the worst year for our business since opening 8 years ago. :-(

There are so many more factors to the economic health of Americans than a simple job report.

By the way, I love what you list as your "hobby" in your profile!

:-)

[saigon68]

49. The 341 hearings are very sad

2 wage earner families unable to keep up with medical bills from substandard insurance and job layoffs. Wisconsin has lost almost 100,000 manufacturing jobs in the last 2 years

most Mcjobs offer no health insurance

[Andromeda]

70. That's exactly what has happened to us...

We just went through bankruptcy and it was the hardest thing we've ever had to do. When we went to court there were lots of other people there going through the same thing.

Last year my husband took a cut in salary and a decrease in benefits. We felt he was fortunate to get that job because we knew people who had been jobless for six months or better. Having a lower paying job is better than having no job at all but you do have to make drastic adjustments to your standard of living.

Even though some of the debt has been erased we still have to worry about day to day living expenses eating us alive. Gasoline is costing us a fortune and food prices have shot up. We pay our own health, dental, life, car and renters insurance and a monthly contribution to our IRA. We don't go out much because we can't afford it so we pay for premium services on cable so we can watch movies at home but that service has become very expensive also so we watch for the special packages, i.e. HBO, StarZ, Cinemax and Showtime with the Encore channels, and when they expire we sign up for another special..and so on.

We've had macaroni and cheese two nights in a row and before that we ate tacos for three days straight. Milk is now $3-4.00 a gallon and bread is over $3 a loaf (if you want it fresh). My two cats are older now and have touchy stomachs so I have to buy Science Diet "Sensitive Stomach" dry cat food. It's expensive but I don't have a choice unless I want to clean up barf all day long.

All my medications are generic because that's all my insurance will pay for. If I want some of the newer popular medications I will have to sell one of my kidneys to get it. Same thing with my husband. I'm just hoping that we don't get an illness that requires one of these "wonder drugs."

[leftyandproud]

19. GOOD numbers = FAKE! Bad numbers = BUSH FAILURE!! haaha!

Isn't it funny how things work here?

be consistent folks...otherwise you look stupid.

[Trajan]

21. Show me evidence ...

NOT Elaine Chou's numbers either ....

I want proof ...

[Frodo]

22. Please give an example?

What would constitute "proof"?

[Trajan]

35. Er ..... something other than numbers from Mitch McConnell ...

I understand that Mitch McConnell was instrumental in promoting and passing legislation that was favorable to Enron and its RAPE of american citizens ...

Dont tell me the McConnell's have turned an new leaf ...

Show something from some other source than the Department of Enronized Propaganda .... I KNOW it's unpatriotic to question the source of wonderful news, but just call me a traitor to the cause, ok ?

This koolaid tastes too bitter for me to drink: I see your glass is drained empty ... would you like my cup ?

[Frodo]

36. I think you missed the point.

There IS no other source. Not for this specific kind of data.


They seemes perfectly acceptable here for the first three years of reporting all of the "bad news".

People here are too experiential. I just moved here, I have virtually no acquantences other than the people I work with. Since THEY all have good jobs, should I look at the economy through THAT lense? If I lose my job in a buyout in the next few months... does that mean the economy is going down?

If anything, the non-governmental sources for employment news say things are BETTER than what is being reported by the BLS.

[arlib]

24. It's just that...

...given this administration's track record, people are skeptical. I'd say believing claims issued during this administration without independent analysis makes us look stupid.
Remember WMD, Iraq involvement in 9-11, etc.?????????
Plus, I just don't see these numbers translated into anything meaningful in the real world. No one I know really feels that things are any better. Polls indicate the same feeling around the country.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

30. The only people that look "stupid" on this board are those that...

...actually believe the employment/unemployment numbers generated by the NeoCons.

[Frodo]

32. Well, that would have been everyone here

Until a year or so ago. Since all of the negative numbers reported over the first three years after shrub took the white house were reported by the same people... and reported here with glee (not glee at people being laid off of course, just at the "I told you so" aspect politically).

[TahitiNut]

41. WRONG! These are NOT "good numbers"!

The employment "growth" continues to be below the average employment increases of the last 50 years - growth mostly attributable to mere population growth.

Th reason is fair to compare the Busholini Regime to Hitler's Regime is because they themselves persist in lowering the proclaimed standard for performance. They claim Iraqis are better off than they were under Saddam! They even use this "standard" when viewing the treatment of "detainees" (a foul euphemism for state kidnapping victims).

This is the "it could be worse (but not much)" adminstration. It's enough to make any sane person vomit.

[Frodo]

46. Could you give us an examply of "good"?

If the last quarter has averaged roughly 320k net jobs per month and that is "below average"... what constitutes "good"?

How high would it need to be?

[TahitiNut]

48. In May 2001, 111,368,000 people were employed in the private sector.

In May 2003, 108,537,000 people were employed in the private sector - nearly 3 million fewer employed workers. We're now told that there were 109,963,000 people employed in the private sector last month. We're told that it's "good" that there were 1,426,000 more people employed last month than 12 months previously. This ignores two very important facts:
(1) We're making the comparisons against an appallingly low level of employment, and
(2) Even with average growth over 12 months, we would have had 110,854,000 people employed last month - 891,000 more than what was reported.

Thus, just looking at the last 12 months, nearly 900,000 people are jobless who, with only "average" ("C"!!) performance would otherwise be employed and benefiting from our nation's wealth-creating labor.

What can we conclude from this? The proclaimed "recovery" for the last 4-5 months has not yet even come close to repairing the damage done in just the last 12 months, let alone the appalling economic damage done in the last 3 years.

As far as I'm concerned, these people spent 3 years doing damage to the economy that disenfranchised millions of workers. At the very best, they have shifted the focus of their destruction overseas for the last 5 months and the economy is recovering on its own. I refuse to give credit to vandals for what the public is doing on its own to survive merely because they've reduced the degree to which they're raping and pillaging what labor is producing.

This is (for me) best portrayed by the following graph which shows private-sector employment growth relative to an average growth rate from the last 50 years. Take note that the numbers have yet to show a net employment recovery in any month compared to the same month in the prior year.



So, to answer the question of what would be "good"?? It would be to see this graph break above the no-damage axis, especally consideriing the fact that their "baseline" is itself the result of depressed employment levels. It does not seem at all unreasonable to demand an above-average employment 12-month growth compared to levels themselves which were depressed, i.e. a "lowered standard."

In summary: Doing less damage is NOT virtuous!

Note: When using 'actual' employment figures, I limit my comparisons to the same month in prior years. This avoids the "seasonal" variances that give rise to the statistical shenanigans called the "seasonally adjusted" employment figures. Because some very minor corporate gamesmanship can shift data collection between adjacent months, month-to-month variances from "seasonally adjusted" figures can lead to invalid conclusions.

[Just Me]

55. Thanks, TahitiNut. Your chart reflects many Americans' reality.

Just because this job-killing economy has been killing off fewer jobs this year,...does not compensate for the jobs already dead and gone and those which are still being killed.

Americans are hurting. I'm hurting.

[Thor_MN]

65. While I agree that consistency is a good thing,

I don't see that a Bush Failure and a Bush Lie are mutually exclusive conditions... In fact I think that both are mainstays of his so called policy or lack thereof.

[Jeff in Cincinnati]

23. 70% of these are Service Sector Jobs

Low Wages, Meager Benefits. To make matters worse, a lot of the people "lucky" enough to land these jobs were long-term unemployed who were giving up better-paying jobs. This is not the sort of thing that fuels a recovery. It's fuels frustration and backlash and those who made it happen.

[SEpatriot]

25. Amen

This is what is such a joke about "jobs numbers." So, now you have a job - making $8.50 per hour instead of making $12.50 an hour. So now you can afford to - pay your ever increasing utility bills, afford a half-gallon of gas, make the payments on your buy-here-pay-here car (as well as the title loan you had to take out), you can afford to eat at McDonald's (maybe at half-price) You can afford to pay the rent only 10 days late, you can afford to shop at the thrift store and make a once-a-month trip to Wal-Mart to buy off-brand diapers and formula together with family-size bags of cheese curls and cases of Sam's cola. Ain't life grand!

[ElectroPrincess]

26. Less than that! $6.95/hour anyone?

A cashier at WalMart whispered to me that they only make $6.95 an hour. Dammit, I *must* find alternative places to shop and/or help make a difference in encouraging WalMart employees to unionize.

Not all "new jobs" are created equal. However, the Wall Street crones are hesitant to educate the public on that fact.

[Tellurian]

33. Good idea for corporate employees to unionize...

WallMart, Lowes, Home Depot, Mickey Ds, and on ands ON...

[blindpig]

27. where?

Certainly not in Upstate SC. With the shameless destruction of the textile industry all but complete there are few good paying jobs for the working class. Yeah, we got BMW paying about half what they pay their German workers, but what else? Temps & mcjobs, starting a lawn service or car detailing shop? It's pretty bad around here.
Lies, damned lies & statistics.

[Joanne98]

34. Elaine Chao is a lying criminal

I wouldn't believe her if she told me the sky was blue.

[mhr]

45. More Bogus, Invented Jobs For Frodo's Charts, He Will Be Giddy!

eom

[Lorien]

47. Part time jobs at the Tastee freeze

and Dairy Queen, no doubt. I have friends who have been looking for two years for employment; they've hired head hunters and agents, and scoured every employment web site daily, but haven't even gotten as far as an interview with anyone. It's horrible out there. :-(

[underpants]

50. The unemployment rate remained at 5.6 percent in May, unchanged from April

'nuff said

[RedStateDem]

51. Relax, everyone. Things are looking fine.

I'm seeing a lot of nailbiting or disbelief over the new numbers. Here's a little warm milk to help us all sleep at night.

First, 5.6% unemployment levels along with job creation reports are not counterintiutive. (President Clinton reported on 6 million new jobs created by the time he made his 1995 state of the union address, but at that time, unemployment was... 5.6%). (See references below)

Second, Bush Senior's economy had turned upward much earlier in his last year than this one is for Junior, and it was actually humming along *just fine* by the time he got booted, and that set President Clinton up very nicely (see above) for 8 years.

In short, the numbers we're seeing aren't faked, and WE WANT the economy to be booming for Kerry. That way he wont have to come up with new solutions and can focus on more important matters, like redistribution and realignment.

Ta ta,

RedStateDem.

U.S. Unemployment Levels 1950-2001
http://encarta.msn.com/media_461544504_1741500821_-1_1/U_S_Unemployment_Levels.html

Clinton 1995 State of the Union Address
http://odur.let.rug.nl/~usa/P/bc42/speeches/sud95wjc.htm
"We have almost six million new jobs since I became president, and we have the lowest combined rate of unemployment and inflation in 25 years. "

[sadiesworld]

52. So Bush Sr. was responsible for the growth during the Clinton years?

Gee, I hadn't heard that one before... :eyes:

[RedStateDem]

53. Of course, that's not what I said.

> "So Bush Sr. was responsible for the growth during the Clinton years?"

Of course, I didn't allege that anywhere in my post. I merely stated a fact, a fact that is easily verified! See TahitiNut's post (#48 in this list) showing that employment numbers were going up up up all the way through Bush Sr's last year (1992), and crossed the "no damage axis" pretty much the day Bill Clinton took office.

So.... good news during the last year of any Bush's first term does not have to be
a) bad news for Dems, or
b) a conspiracy from the Ministry of Truth.

Thanks, sadiesworld!

RedStateDem

[TahitiNut]

60. Please do not confuse "less damaging" with "constructive"

Perhaps this chart will help:



These are quarterly figures, updated through March 2004.

Let's be clear - "productivity" is solely the result of labor. The only source of "gross domestic product" is labor. When labor receives a diminishing share of the wealth they are creating, labor is being screwed. There's a big difference between 60/40 and 56/44 - and realizing this is what we call a "sense of proportion." What we've seen during the Busholini Regime (since 1Q2001) is nearly a 16% shift in equity compensation from labor to capital. Reichbots like to demonize people who "live off the labor of others" ... and then get deluded into thinking those who're barely surviving are the parasites. Nothing could be further from the truth. It's the plantation owners, not the enfeebled slaves, who're living large off the labor of the working slaves. This parasitic predation is only compounded by the shift in taxation onto the backs of those who're receiving less of a share of the wealth they create.

[RedStateDem]

61. ...but don't confuse "less damaging" with "still getting worse"

Yes, let's be clear. The economy is recovering.

There appears to be a tendency among us to assume that the economy is not really recovering, that the numbers provided by the government are faked, and that job loss reports prove that there really is not a recovery going on. When an economy is going from "worst ever in the history of the world" to "slightly better than it was a year ago", only the blind will maintain that there really isn't a recovery at all.

It would be just as foolish to pull out a jobs loss report from 1998 and use it to show that the 1990s boom was not real. The jobs losses in 1998 were worse than they were in 1997, but IT WAS STILL AN ECONOMIC BOOM. (Anyone care to deny that?)

The recovery going on right now is REAL (i.e., it's going from "terrible" to "not as terrible") and that is something we should be glad about. Believe me, those in Kerry's camp WANT a good economy in January 2005 when they take over. Rejoice in this.

RedStateDem

[TahitiNut]

62. It's with the word "recovery" that I take greatest issue.

The average annual rate of private-sector job creation over the last 50 years is 2.14%. This is almost solely due to population increases with the additional influence of increases in multiple-job households and multiple-job workers. Thus, for employment to increase annually at a 2.14% rate is average or steady-state - neither harmed nor helped.

To call it a "recovery" we'd need to see a rate greater than 2.14%, where only those jobs above the rate could be considered "recovered" jobs.

Since we're still nearly 900,000 jobs below the number we would expect of an "average" economy just over the last 12 months, I cannot view some temporary month-to-month variance as a "recovery."

From May 2003 to May 2004 employment increased by 1.31% ... far below the 2.14% required. Whatever 'creation' is speciously claimed in the five months between December 2003 and May 2004 is dwarfed by the damage (job losses) between May 2003 and December 2003 as well as the below-average increases in jobs since then.

---

Now, for grins, let's look at the month-to-month figures, using (of necessity) the "seasonally adjusted" employment numbers ...

The average month-to-month change in the number of people employed in the private sector over the 50 years between February 1951 and January 2001 inclusive is 0.17%. Until March 2004, when the number of jobs went up by 0.31%, the number of jobs never increased by that much during the entire Busholini Regime! Only during the last three months (not five), has the number of jobs increased at an "above average" rate.

In only THREE months out of FORTY months of the Busholini Regime has employment increased at more than an average rate.

That's only three months of "recovery" compared to thirty-seven months of wanton destruction!

There have been fewer people privately employed in 25 of the 40 months of the Busholini Regime than there were in the prior month! They've been literally destroying jobs 63% of the time since they stole office!


That's a lot like saying that the few seconds we wait while a sniper reloads is "peace".

It's not a "recovery." They're merely reloading.

[area51]

73. If the econ. were really recovering,

then all the unemployed would be able to get decent jobs to support themselves & their families. If you're so sure that we're in a recovery, then obviously you won't mind quitting your job so that some deserving unemployed person can have it. But I suspect that neither you nor Fro-ho, the nazi administration shill, are willing to do that, thus proving my point.

[Southsideirish]

54. Labor Dept should separate jobs into those with benefits and those

without them - then the truth would be known to all.

[liskddksil]

56. Interesting

I haven't been able to find one summer job in the past three months, except my camp job that I've had the last three summers.

[Paulie]

57. Reserve Call-UPs vs. Civilian Employment numbers

I haven't found any data yet, but does any of the BLS stuff take into account Reserve/guard force call-ups? I know of a dozen or so people at work that have been called up, and they are entitled to those jobs when they return. There has been hiring to fill in, so even if there is one job, there are two head counts associated with it.

Just how many part time solders have been called up, and what does that do to the numbers?????

[Frodo]

59. I think it's pretty much a wash.

Military members (incliding reserve callups) are not in the labor pool, so they don't count as employed OR unemployed. That would probably REDUCE the number of people in the establishment survey and leave the household survey reletively unaffected.

Some people who are called up were unemployed at the time, so taking them out of the labor pool AND off the "unemployed" count probably helps the numbers.

But it probably doesn't amtter much. We're talking about a few tens of thousands - when these reports are talknig about hundreds of theousands per month.

[Barkley]

64. If the economy's doing so well why hasn't the Dow improved?

Corporate earnings are up also. With news like this I'd expect to see the rally in the stock market first and then an improvement in employment.

These employment figures make the chances of the Fed lowering interest rates next to impossible.

There is also probably some uncertainty as to what will be the business tax policies in the next five years; so perhaps businesses are holding back.

But I still would expect the stock market to rally. May be its coming.

[moondust]

66. VRWC.

As old Joe Stalin might have said: "It's not up to the people who are hired and fired, it's up to the people who do the hiring and the firing." And if old Joe's buddies are managing the industries you're apt to see a big rise in employment numbers coinciding with old Joe's reelection campaign.

[weedthesmoke]

68. Is it as good as the Clinton Dot.Com boom in the 90's yet?

Let's hope it lasts longer this time if it is. We still have until November to talk down any boom that might happen to insure people don't do something dumb like vote for bush.

[dArKeR]

69. It's collusion between GOP Crime Family and Corp. Crime to spend money

now to make it look like aWol's policy is working. Billions of tax cuts and the Corps. spend a few million just before election to inflate job numbers then they all get fired after the election.

1. Is this Christian morality? (It's also called Racketeering.)

2. What about 3.5 years of nothing? Where could we all have been under Gore?

[Piperay]

71. "Crap" jobs is

what they are, jobs they call "assembly jobs" when all you "assemble" is a stinkin MacGreaseBurger and MacDonalds. :puke: :puke: :puke:

[missile_bender]

72. The Labor Dept. claims the 5.6% unemployment

figure remains steady becuase more people are encouraged to look for work. Shenagigans! Lies! Illogic! The unemployment rate is based on the number of people getting compensation ("the dole"). It's not based on the number looking for work. EVERYBODY is looking for work. Even people who have jobs are looking for new jobs. The unemployment number goes down as less people get compensation and no new claims are made, NOT BECUASE THEY STOPPED LOOKING FOR WORK. If people are rejoining the unemployment roles it's because they had a temporary (at least six-month), full-time job that is finished, and when they lost it they went back on compensation. So if 5.6 percent is the rate, all those people are getting compensation. THERE ARE STILL NO JOBS. The whole thing is a big, fat Black House lie.