March Employment Tops 147 Million

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their monthly employment survey results for the month of March on Friday April 6^th .

According to the BLS the Seasonally Adjusted U-3 Unemployment Rate is unchanged for the 6^th month in a row. So from October through March the Seasonally Adjusted Unemployment rate has been 4.1%. This month the unadjusted U-3 was also 4.1%.

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 March Employment and Unemployment Numbers

• Adjusted U-3 Unemployment- 4.1% unchanged since October.
• Unadjusted U-3 Unemployment- 4.1% down from 4.4% February.
• Unadjusted U-6 Unemployment- 8.1% down from 8.6% in February.
• Employment 147,332 million up from 146.667 million in February and 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 three sectors are to the left of the zero line this month indicating that all other sectors gained employees in March except Construction which lost -15,000 employees, Retail which lost -4,400 employees, and “Other Services” which lost -1,000 employees on a “Seasonally Adjusted” basis.

The biggest gainer was Professional and Business Services (bubble furthest to the right) which added 33,000 jobs, followed by Education and Health Services which gained 25,000 jobs and Manufacturing which gained 22,000 jobs on top of last months 31,000 manufacturing jobs gained. Average weekly earnings for all industries increased from $922.88 to $925.29.

(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

March  2018, Seasonally Adjusted

U-6 Unemployment

Looking at the broader measure of Unemployment which includes discouraged workers, we see that the U-6 unemployment rate fell from 8.9% in January to 8.6% in February and fell further to 8.1% in March.

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 665,000  jobs in March. The BLS Commissioner said:“ Nonfarm payroll employment edged up by 103,000 in March, following a large gain in February (+326,000)… 

Over the month, job gains occurred in manufacturing, health care, and mining… Manufacturing employment rose by 22,000… Employment in health care increased by 22,000 in March and has grown by 304,000 over the year…. Mining employment rose by 9,000… Employment in professional and business services continued to trend up in March (+33,000). Over the year, employment in the industry has increased by 502,000, with gains distributed across most of the component industries.”

But, if we look at the Not Seasonally Adjusted numbers we find that employment was 146,667,000 in February and 147,332,000 in March. So as they stand right now that gives us an increase of 665,000  jobs in March.

However, as noted above, the BLS commissioner said jobs increased by 103,000. That is because he is talking about “Seasonally Adjusted” jobs. Meaning that although actual jobs are up by over 665,000, they are up by 103,000 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 would think this would be a much more accurate indicator than the unemployment rate. If we look at the current Employment Population Ratio chart you will see that it fell drastically beginning in 2008 and has since begun climbing but it is still nowhere near previous levels. As a matter of fact it isn’t even up to the previous lows of 1992 and 2003. So the fact that the “unemployment rate is the same” is a bit misleading since a much smaller percentage of the population is actually working. Bureau of Labor Statistics Series LNS12300000.

Labor Force Participation Rate

You might be wondering if recessions have any effect on the LFPR. It might make sense that the LFPR would fall during a recession.

In the chart above we can see both LFPR vs. Recessions. And the results were a bit surprising. The red arrows indicate short term trends and the blue arrows indicate longer term trends.

See Labor Force Participation Rate for more information.