BLS

May Unemployment Lowest Since 2000

June 2, 2018 by Tim McMahon

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their monthly employment survey results for the month of May on Friday June 1^st .

According to the BLS the Seasonally Adjusted U-3 Unemployment Rate is at a new low. Unemployment has been falling and has now reached levels not seen since April of 2000. Current levels are even lower than during the boom of 2006. If they drop another 1/10^th of a percent we will have to go all the way back to 1969 to find levels that low.

Many Experts consider this to be the new “Full Employment” level i.e. everyone who wants a job has found one however with the Labor Force Participation rate still well below the average that is debatable. See Is the U.S. Really at “Full Employment”? for more information.

Key May Employment and Unemployment Numbers

Adjusted U-3 Unemployment- May 3.8% Down from 3.9% in April and 4.1% October – March.
Unadjusted U-3 Unemployment- May 3.6% down from 3.7% in April and 4.1% in March.
Unadjusted U-6 Unemployment- May 7.3% Down from 7.4% in April and from 8.1% in March and 8.6% in February.
Employment 149.309 million up from 148.367 million in April and 147.369 million in March.
Gallup has discontinued publishing U-6 & U-3 numbers.

See Current Unemployment Chart for more info.

Employment by Sector

The employment “bubble chart” gives us a good representation of how each sector of the economy is doing (employment wise). As we can see from the chart below only one sector is to the left of the zero line this month indicating that all other sectors gained employees except Utilities which lost -1,100 employees. The big gainers were Education and Health, Professional and business Services, Construction, Leisure and Manufacturing.

The biggest gainer was Education and Health Services (bubble furthest to the right) which added 39,000+ jobs, followed by Retail and Professional Services which each gained roughly 31,000 jobs, Leisure gained 21,000 jobs and manufacturing gained another 18,000 on top of consistently high gains for the last few months. Average weekly earnings for all industries increased to $928.74.

(See the table below the chart for average weekly earnings and other details.)

How to read this chart:

Bubbles location on the chart tell us two things:

Change in Employment Levels over the most recent month.
Average Weekly earnings.
The further to the right the bubble the larger the increase in the number of jobs.
The higher up on the chart the larger the average salary.

Bubble Size tells us:

Total Employment for the sector.
Larger bubbles mean more people are employed in that sector.

Employment and Average Weekly Earnings by Industry for All Employees

May 2018, Seasonally Adjusted

Industry	Monthly Increase	Average Weekly Earnings	Employment Level
Total Private Employment	218,000	$928.74	126,336,000
Mining and Logging	4,000	$1,500.09	733,000
Construction	25,000	$1,174.14	7,210,000
Manufacturing	18,000	$1,097.52	12,673,000
Wholesale trade	4,200	$1,189.81	5,954,800
Retail trade	31,100	$579.70	15,970,300
Transportation and Warehousing	18,700	$940.41	5,309,300
Utilities	-1,100	$1,689.89	554,400
Information	6,000	$1,418.40	2,775,000
Financial Activities	8,000	$1,303.88	8,559,000
Professional and Business Services	31,000	$1,164.92	20,891,000
Education and Health Services	39,000	$887.70	23,563,000
Leisure and Hospitality	21,000	$413.95	16,281,000
Other Services	13,000	$772.53	5,862,000

April Unemployment Lowest Level Since 2000

May 5, 2018 by Tim McMahon

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their monthly employment survey results for the month of April on Friday May 4^th .

At 3.9% the Seasonally Adjusted U-3 Unemployment Rate is at its lowest level since December 2000. The Unadjusted U-3 is at 3.7%.

Key April Employment and Unemployment Numbers

Adjusted U-3 Unemployment- 3.9% Down from 4.1% October – March.
Unadjusted U-3 Unemployment- 3.7% down from 4.1% in March.
Unadjusted U-6 Unemployment- 7.4% Down massively from 8.1% in March and 8.6% in February.
Employment 148.367 million up from 147.369 million in March but still below the 148.783 million in November.
Gallup has discontinued publishing U-6 & U-3 numbers.

See Current Unemployment Chart for more info.

Employment by Sector

The employment “bubble chart” gives us a good representation of how each sector of the economy is doing (employment wise). As we can see from the chart below only one sector is to the left of the zero line this month indicating that all other sectors gained employees in April except Wholesale Trade which lost -9,800 employees on a “Seasonally Adjusted” basis.

The biggest gainers were Professional and Business Services (bubble furthest to the right) which added 54,000 jobs, followed by Education and Health Services which gained 31,000 jobs and Manufacturing which gained 24,000 jobs. Interestingly all three were the top gainers last month as well with similar gains. Average weekly earnings for all industries increased from $925.29 to $925.98.

(See the table below the chart for average weekly earnings and other details.)

How to read this chart:

Bubbles location on the chart tell us two things:

Change in Employment Levels over the most recent month.
Average Weekly earnings.
The further to the right the bubble the larger the increase in the number of jobs.
The higher up on the chart the larger the average salary.

Bubble Size tells us:

Total Employment for the sector.
Larger bubbles mean more people are employed in that sector.

Employment and Average Weekly Earnings by Industry for All Employees

April 2018, Seasonally Adjusted

Industry	Monthly Increase	Average Weekly Earnings	Employment Level
Total Private Employment	168,000	$925.98	126,106,000
Mining and Logging	8,000	$1,483.82	730,000
Construction	17,000	$1,170.39	7,174,000
Manufacturing	24,000	$1,106.00	12,655,000
Wholesale trade	-9,800	$1,176.34	5,952,700
Retail trade	1,800	$575.67	15,927,000
Transportation and Warehousing	400	$943.71	5,285,400
Utilities	1,000	$1,698.31	555,300
Information	7,000	$1,416.93	2,772,000
Financial Activities	2,000	$1,285.92	8,549,000
Professional and Business Services	54,000	$1,166.73	20,869,000
Education and Health Services	31,000	$884.40	23,517,000
Leisure and Hospitality	18,000	$413.16	16,272,000
Other Services	14,000	$773.69	5,848,000

U-6 Unemployment

Looking at the broader measure of Unemployment which includes discouraged workers, we see that the U-6 unemployment rate fell steadily from 8.9% in January to 7.4% in April.

See Unadjusted U-6 unemployment for more info.

Employment

Over the last month, the actual number of people working (not seasonally adjusted) has increased by 998,000 jobs in April. The BLS Commissioner said:

“Nonfarm payroll employment increased by 164,000 in April, and the unemployment rate edged down to 3.9 percent. Over the month, job gains occurred in professional and business services, manufacturing, health care, and mining.“

Actual employment was 147.369 million in March and 148.367 million in April for an actual increase of 998,000 not the 164,000 spoken of by the Commissioner. The 164,000 is “Seasonally Adjusted” meaning that employment increased by that much more than average for this time of year.

See Employment Commentary.

Employment / Population Ratio

If you take the number of jobs and divide it by the population you get what percentage of the population is working. You

February Employment UP – Unemployment Down

March 10, 2018 by Tim McMahon

On Friday March 9^th the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their monthly employment survey results for the month of February.

According to the BLS the Seasonally Adjusted U-3 Unemployment Rate for February is unchanged for the 5th month in a row. That’s right from October through February the Seasonally Adjusted Unemployment rate has been 4.1%.

This is a very low level and we really don’t expect it to get too much lower.

Key February Employment and Unemployment Numbers

Adjusted U-3 Unemployment- 4.1% unchanged since October.
Unadjusted U-3 Unemployment- 4.4% down from 4.5% January.
Unadjusted U-6 Unemployment- 8.6% down from 8.9% in January.
Employment 146.696 million up from 145.473 million in January but down from 148.346 million in December and 148.526 million in November.
Gallup has discontinued publishing U-6 & U-3 numbers.

See Current Unemployment Chart for more info.

Employment by Sector

The employment “bubble chart” gives us a good representation of how each sector of the economy is doing (employment wise). As we can see from the chart below the only sector to the left of the zero line is Information meaning that all other sectors gained employees in February except information which lost -12,000 employees on a “Seasonally Adjusted” basis.

The biggest gainer was construction (bubble furthest to the right) which added 61,000 jobs, followed by Retail Trade which gained 50,300 jobs and Professional and Business Services which gained 50,000 jobs even manufacturing gained 31,000 jobs. (See the table below the chart for average weekly earnings and other details.)

How to read this chart:

Bubbles location on the chart tell us two things:

Change in Employment Levels over the most recent month.
Average Weekly earnings.
The further to the right the bubble the larger the increase in the number of jobs.
The higher up on the chart the larger the average salary.

Bubble Size tells us:

Total Employment for the sector.
Larger bubbles mean more people are employed in that sector.

Employment and Average Weekly Earnings by Industry for All Employees

February 2018, Seasonally Adjusted

Industry	Monthly Increase	Average Weekly Earnings	Employment Level
Total Private Employment	287,000	$922.88	125,819,000
Mining and Logging	8,000	$1,485.78	713,000
Construction	61,000	$1,158.17	7,173,000
Manufacturing	31,000	$1,100.03	12,614,000
Wholesale trade	5,800	$1,185.12	5,956,200
Retail trade	50,300	$572.55	15,926,200
Transportation and Warehousing	15,400	$940.60	5,263,400
Utilities	1,200	$1,658.82	553,400
Information	-12,000	$1,418.40	2,748,000
Financial Activities	28,000	$1,290.81	8,547,000
Professional and Business Services	50,000	$1,161.30	20,760,000
Education and Health Services	23,000	$882.75	23,466,000
Leisure and Hospitality	16,000	$410.81	16,262,000
Other Services	10,000	$768.73	5,837,000

U-6 Unemployment

Looking at the broader measure of Unemployment which includes discouraged workers, we see that the U-6 unemployment rate fell from 10.1% in January to 9.5% in 2017 and from 8.9% to 8.6% in 2018.

From the table at the left we can also see that U-6 unemployment went from 9.2% in October 2016 to 7.6% in 2017.

Similarly it fell from 9.0% in November 2016 to 7.7% in 2017 and from 9.1% in December 2016 to 8.0% in 2017.

See Unadjusted U-6 unemployment for more info.

Employment

Over the last month, the actual number of people working (not seasonally adjusted) has increased by [Read more…] about February Employment UP – Unemployment Down

January Unemployment Almost “Record Setting”

February 3, 2018 by Tim McMahon

January Unemployment is almost record setting… but not for the reason you might think.

On Friday February 2^nd the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their monthly employment survey results for the month of January. According to the BLS the Seasonally Adjusted U-3 Unemployment Rate for January is unchanged for the almost record setting 4th month in a row. That’s right from October through January the Seasonally Adjusted Unemployment rate has been 4.1%. This is a very low level and we really don’t expect it to get too much lower but the interesting part is that the unadjusted U-3 was 3.9% from October through December (resulting in the adjusted rate being 4.1%) but then in January the unadjusted rate jumped to 4.5% (a 0.6% increase) and the adjusted U-3 remained the same at 4.1%. This is because typically January sees an uptick in unemployment as all the seasonal employees get laid-off. So we would expect some sort of uptick in unadjusted unemployment rate. But because the Seasonally Adjusted U3 was unchanged for the month the current increase in the unadjusted U-3 was actually no greater or less than normal. See Current Unemployment Chart for more info.

U-6 Unemployment

Over the same period, Unadjusted U-6 unemployment which is a broader measure of Unemployment including discouraged workers, climbed steadily.

It was 7.6% in October, then 7.7% in November, then 8.0% in December, and finally 8.9% in January.

This is still significantly better than a year ago when in November 2016 Unadjusted U-6 was 9% and had climbed to 10.1% by January 2017.

See Unadjusted U-6 unemployment for more info.

Employment

Over the last month, the actual number of people working (not seasonally adjusted) has decreased by [Read more…] about January Unemployment Almost “Record Setting”

December Retail Employment Down

January 6, 2018 by Tim McMahon

On Friday January 5^th the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their monthly employment survey results for the month of December. Many of the numbers remained unchanged from November which was also unchanged from October.

Unemployment

According to the BLS Seasonally Adjusted U-3 was 4.1% since October while Unadjusted U-3 was 3.9% for three months. Unadjusted U-6 unemployment which is a broader measure of Unemployment rose from 7.6% in October to 7.7% in November to 8.0% in December. This is still significantly better than a year ago when in November 2016 Unadjusted U-6 was 9% and December was 9.1%.

Typically January sees an uptick in unemployment as all the seasonal employees get laid-off. So we would expect some sort of uptick next month.

According to the BLS Commissioner’s report for this month:

“Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rate for teenagers declined to 13.6 percent in December, offsetting an increase in November. In December, the unemployment rates for adult men (3.8 percent), adult women (3.7 percent), Whites (3.7 percent), Blacks (6.8 percent), Asians (2.5 percent), and Hispanics (4.9 percent) showed little or no change.”

See: Current Unemployment Rate Chart for more info.

Employment

Back in October, employment was 147,952,000 in November it rose to 148,526,000 but then it fell slightly in December to 148,346,000 for a net loss from November to December of 180,000 jobs. The BLS Commissioner’s report however said, “Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 148,000 in December…” That is because he is talking about “Seasonally Adjusted” jobs. Meaning that although actual jobs are down, they are down by 148,000 less than average for this time of year.

See Current Employment Commentary and Historical Employment Commentary

Labor Force Participation Rate

You might be wondering if [Read more…] about December Retail Employment Down

Manufacturing Jobs Soar Under Trump

December 9, 2017 by Tim McMahon

On Friday December 8^th the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their monthly employment survey results for the month of November.

According to the BLS the Unemployment for November is virtually unchanged from October to November on both an Unadjusted and Seasonally Adjusted basis. Seasonally Adjusted U-3 was 4.1% for both months while Unadjusted U-3 was 3.9% for both months. Unadjusted U-6 unemployment which is a broader measure of Unemployment rose slightly from 7.6% in October to 7.7% in November. This is still significantly better than a year ago when in November 2016 Unadjusted U-6 was 9%.

Unemployment

Over the last month, the actual number of people working has increased by 532,000 and the civilian non-institutional population (a fairly narrow measurement of population) has increased by a very low 183,000.

This means that not only has the increase in jobs kept up with the increase in the population but it was actually almost 3 times greater than the population growth! And since only about half of the population is working, job growth has far exceeded the level needed to keep things on a steady keel. See: Current Unemployment Rate Chart for more info.

Employment

Employment was 147,975,000 in October (148,006,000 when the numbers were originally released in November) and the current numbers for employment are 148,507,000 in November for a net gain of 501,000 over the original October numbers or 532,000 increase over the new October numbers.

See Employment Commentary.

Although unemployment rates are virtually unchanged the Employment numbers tell a slightly different story. According to [Read more…] about Manufacturing Jobs Soar Under Trump

October Unemployment Rate Down Again

November 4, 2017 by Tim McMahon

On Friday November 3^rd the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their monthly employment survey results for the month of October.

According to the BLS, the current “Seasonally Adjusted” Unemployment Rate for October is 4.1% DOWN from 4.2% in September and 4.4% in August. Seasonally Adjusted U-3 unemployment was 4.8% in January and 4.9% a year ago (October 2016).

The current “Unadjusted” rate is 3.9% down from 4.1% in September and 4.5% in August. Unadjusted U-3 was 5.1% in January and 4.7% a year ago (October 2016).

See: Current Unemployment Rate Chart for more info.

Seasonal adjustment provides something like a moving average leveling out the bumps due to normal seasonal variations. See: Unadjusted vs. Seasonally Adjusted Unemployment Rate for more information about Seasonal Adjustment.

According to the BLS Commissioner’s report for this month:

September Unemployment Rate Down

October 7, 2017 by Tim McMahon

On Friday October 6^th the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their monthly employment survey results for the month of September. Every month the BLS conducts two surveys one contacts a sampling of households and the other collects data from businesses. Then they massage some of the numbers to “Seasonally Adjust” them and release them to the media.

According to the BLS, the current “Seasonally Adjusted” Unemployment Rate for September (released October 6^th) is 4.2% DOWN from 4.4% in August. The current “Unadjusted” rate is 4.1% down from 4.5% in August.

According to the BLS Commissioner’s report for this month:

“The unemployment rate declined to 4.2 percent in September, and total nonfarm payroll employment changed little (-33,000), the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. A sharp employment decline in food services and drinking places and below-trend growth in some other industries likely reflected the impact of Hurricanes Irma and Harvey. “

See: Current Unemployment Rate Chart for more info.

In the very next paragraph, based on the Household Unemployment Survey, he said, “The unemployment rate decreased by 0.2 percentage point to 4.2 percent in September, and the number of unemployed persons declined by 331,000 to 6.8 million. Both measures were down over the year.”

Declining unemployment means more jobs! So which is it 331,000 more jobs? -33,000 fewer jobs? Or 340,000 more jobs? [Read more…] about September Unemployment Rate Down

May Employment and Unemployment Numbers

June 2, 2017 by Tim McMahon

The U.S.Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the May unemployment numbers today. The BLS Commissioner says: Nonfarm payroll employment increased by 138,000 in May, but these are Seasonally Adjusted numbers. So since typically employment increases in May, what he is saying is that 138,000 more jobs than average were created. In unadjusted terms employment was 145.938 million in April and 146.748 in May for a net gain of 810,000 jobs. Adjusted U-3 Unemployment was 4.3% down from 4.4% in April. Unadjusted U-3 Unemployment was 4.1% unchanged from April.

Gallup Unadjusted U-3 was 5.2% down from 5.4% in April. Gallup’s unadjusted U-6 Unemployment was 8.1% unchanged from April. Gallup’s U-6 was 13.8% Down from 14.0% in April.

May Employment Gain and Loss Bubbles

In the following chart from the BLS we can see [Read more…] about May Employment and Unemployment Numbers

Unemployment Down in March

April 8, 2017 by Tim McMahon

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their monthly Employment/Unemployment report for the month ending in March on April 7^th. The widely publicized Seasonally Adjusted U-3 Unemployment rate was 4.5% down from 4.7% in February. While the broader U-6 unemployment rate that includes discouraged workers and other “marginally attached” individuals was 8.9% down from 9.5% in February.

The BLS’ Unadjusted U-3 was 4.6% in March down from 4.9% in February. The Gallup alternatives presented mixed results with Gallup’s Unadjusted U-3 at 5.7% up from 5.5% in February while Gallup’s version of the U-6 was unchanged at 13.7%.

The BLS Commissioner’s statement said, “The unemployment rate declined by 0.2 percentage point to 4.5 percent in March. Nonfarm payroll employment edged up by 98,000, following gains in January (+216,000) and February (+219,000). In March, job gains occurred in professional and business services and in mining, while retail employment declined.”

In the above chart we can see [Read more…] about Unemployment Down in March