The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its employment / unemployment report for February on March 10^th 2023.

Employment Up and Unemployment Up? 

• Unadjusted Employment rose from 152.836 million to 153.955 million
• Labor Force Participation rose from 62.4% to 62.5%
• Adjusted U-3 rose from 3.4% to 3.6%
• Unadjusted U-3 unchanged at 3.9%
• Unadjusted U-6 fell from 7.4% to 7.3%

According to the Commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics:

“Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 311,000 in February, and the unemployment rate edged up to 3.6 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Notable job gains occurred in leisure and hospitality, retail trade, government, and health care. Employment declined in information and in transportation and warehousing.”

You can read the full BLS report here.

As usual, they are talking about “Seasonally Adjusted Jobs”.

Looking at the Unadjusted Establishment Survey report, we see…

Originally the BLS reported employment of 152.844 million for January, which they adjusted down slightly to 152.836 million.

The current estimate for February is 153.955 million which is up 1.11 million from the original number and up 1.12 million from the revised numbers. According to the BLS, this increase didn’t change the unadjusted U-3 number and actually resulted in an increase in unemployment on a seasonally adjusted basis.

ADP^® National Employment Report

According to ADP In collaboration with Stanford Digital Economy Lab, private employment was up from January to February by 242,000.

ADP: Private employers added 242,000 jobs in February

ADP also lists increases by “firm size” and they posted this comment:

• Job gains are solid and wage growth remains elevated. A particular area of weakness is with small establishments, which shed jobs every month since August 2022.

But their December report showed small businesses gaining.

December Changes:

February Changes:

ADP Also Tracks Salary Changes:

As you would expect in a tight labor market, “Job Changers” saw a much greater increase in salary than those who stayed in their job, as companies needed to offer significant increases in order to attract new employees.

Another interesting development is that women got larger increases than men.

Also, the younger you were, the greater the increase.

Leisure and Hospitality saw the largest salary gains, but they are typically the lowest-paid workers.

February 2023 Employment by Sector

The employment “bubble chart” is a quick and easy way to see how each sector performs on a seasonally adjusted basis. The Bubble’s Size tells us the total Employment for that industry (i.e., larger bubbles mean more people are employed in that sector).

The bubble’s location on the chart tells us that there has been a change in Employment Levels over the most recent month… A bubble further to the right indicates larger job growth. A bubble’s vertical location on the chart shows the average industry salary.

Average Weekly Wages Fell in February

Click for a larger image.

Remember, these are Seasonally Adjusted Numbers, so they aren’t cumulative!

BLS Employment and Average Weekly Earnings by Industry

February 2023, Seasonally Adjusted Employment

We’ve added another column to the table below that shows the employment levels that the BLS reported the previous month. Note that due to “seasonal adjusting” although they may claim that there was a “monthly increase” (or decrease), there isn’t always a real increase; you can’t just subtract last month’s “employment level” from this month’s level. For instance, Utilities was supposed to have 555,200 employed in January and have a -1,100 “decrease”, but in February, there were only 552,100 employed. That looks like a -3,100 decrease to me. And Information was supposed to have a -25,000 decrease but went from 3,065,000 in January to 3,075,000 in February. Employment for Professional and Business Services supposedly gained 45,000 but the numbers are exactly the same for January and February.

Source: BLS

Note: As usual, ADP has an entirely different picture with “Professional and Business Services”, and Construction losing  jobs instead of gaining them

ADP Job Losers

ADP Job Gainers

Unemployment

February’s Seasonally Adjusted Unemployment is 3.6%, up from 3.4% in January.

See Unemployment Rate Chart for more information.

Current Employment Rate Chart

Typically the low point for each year occurs in January. Then employment moves almost straight up to a small peak around June with a slight drop around July, and then the highest peak in employment happens in November with a slight decline in December. In 2021, rather than a decline in December, we saw a slight increase, followed by the typical January decline and a rebound in February through June. Employment peaked at 155.015 million in December, beating the November 2019 peak by roughly 2 million (although the U.S. population has increased by over 4.8 million since then as well).

See Current Employment for more info.

Unemployment Still Historically Low

Unemployment levels are still in the historically low territory. After all, the FED did pump unprecedented TRILLIONS into the economy to get us to this place.

See: FED Actions for more info.

But we can see that Seasonally Adjusted U-3 is definitely in the “Green” territory.

Click for a larger Image

February 2023 Labor Force Participation Rate

See Labor Force Participation Rate for more information.

Seasonally Adjusted U1 through U6 Unemployment Rates

For more information about the various measurements of unemployment, see  What Is U-6 Unemployment?

Seasonally Adjusted Unemployment by Education

The primary noteworthy point on this chart is the drastic increase in unemployment by the uneducated, jumping from 4.5% in January to 5.8% in February.
Employment-Population Ratio

See Employment Population Ratio for more information