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Highlights from the August 6th Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) employment / unemployment report for July.
Latino unemployment is lower than Asian unemployment for the first time since the BLS began tracking Asian unemployment separately.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its employment / unemployment report for August on September 4th.
According to the Commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics:
“Nonfarm payroll employment increased by 1.4 million in August, and the unemployment rate declined by 1.8 percentage points to 8.4 percent. These improvements reflect the continued resumption of economic activity that had been curtailed due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and efforts to contain it.
In August, employment rose in several major industry sectors. A gain in government largely reflected the hiring of temporary workers for the 2020 Census. Notable job gains also occurred in retail trade, in professional and business services, in leisure and hospitality, and in education and health services.”
Of course, he is talking about “Seasonally Adjusted Jobs” from the “Current Population Survey (CPS)” rather than looking at the results reported by actual companies in their “Current Employment Statistics survey (CES)”
Looking at the CES report we see…
Originally the BLS reported 139.100 million jobs for July, they subtracted 37,000 jobs from that estimate.
So currently they are saying 139.063 million jobs for July and 140.598 million jobs for August which is an increase of 1,535,000 jobs based on their updated estimates.
[Read more…] about Latino Unemployment Lower than Asian Unemployment for First Time
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released its employment / unemployment report for October on November 1st.
Unemployment is still near record lows. Although the “Seasonally Adjusted” Unemployment Rate for October ticked up from 3.5% in September to 3.6%. However, the unadjusted U-3 Unemployment rate was unchanged at 3.3%. This Jobs report was unexpectedly good despite counting 30,000 “unemployed” strikers at auto manufacturers.
According to the Commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics:
“Nonfarm payroll employment increased by 128,000 in October, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 3.6 percent. Notable employment gains occurred in food services and drinking places, social assistance, and financial activities. Within manufacturing, employment declined in motor vehicles and parts due to strike activity. Federal government employment was down, reflecting a drop in the number of temporary jobs for the 2020 Census.”
Experts had been predicting that the economy would add no more than 75,000 jobs. In fact, MarketWatch on Thursday told readers that
the report would be “a big dud” due to the impact of the General Motors strike on the overall numbers.
If it hadn’t been for the strike the October numbers would have been even better.
Of course, the Commissioner is talking about “Seasonally Adjusted Jobs” from the “Current Population Survey (CPS)”
rather than looking at the results reported by actual companies in the BLS’ “Current Employment Statistics survey (CES)”
in reality, the BLS has done a lot of “Adjusting” over the last few months.
The original CES numbers the BLS reported for August was 151.517 million people employed in August
then later they adjusted it up to 151.607 million. And for September they originally reported there were 151.949 million employed
and currently they are reporting 152.962 million employed so that is an actual increase of 1.013 million NOT and adjusted increase of 128,000!
But in addition to “Seasonal Adjustment”, they adjusted September’s number up to 152.015 million
so the difference between September and October appears to be less than it actually was.
For more info see our Current Unemployment Chart and Current U.S. Employment Chart commentary:
Key factors in the BLS report were:
Employment in food services and drinking places rose by 48,000 over the month.
Financial activities employment rose by 15,000, with nearly half of the gain occurring in insurance carriers and related activities (+7,000).
Social assistance added 20,000 jobs in October, with most of the gain occurring in individual and family services.
Financial activities added 16,000 jobs.
Professional and business services added 22,000 jobs.
Health care added 15,000 jobs.
Manufacturing employment declined by 36,000 in October.
Employment in motor vehicles and parts manufacturing decreased
by 42,000, reflecting strike activity.
[Read more…] about October Unemployment- Jobs Much Better Than Expected
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their monthly unemployment survey results for May on June 7th. Although Unemployment is still at record lows job creation is less than expected.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics:
The U.S. economy created 75,000 jobs in May and the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate held steady at 3.6 percent. However, economists projected a 175,000 jobs gain and instead only got 75,000 so they were disappointed but that didn’t stop the stock market with the DOW gaining over 1% in a single day.
According to the BLS Commissioner’s report for this month:
“ Nonfarm payroll employment edged up in May (+75,000), and the unemployment rate remained at 3.6 percent.
Employment continued to trend up in professional and business services and in health care…
In May, 4.4 million people were working part time for economic reasons (also referred to as involuntary part-time workers),
down by 299,000 from the previous month and by 565,000 over the year.”
Key factors in the report were:
Employment in professional and business services increased by 33,000…
Health Care employment rose by 16,000…
Construction employment increased by 4,000…
Seasonally Adjusted U-3 Unemployment remains at its lowest rate since December 1969.
Of course the Commissioner is talking about “Seasonally Adjusted” jobs. In unadjusted terms April had 150.942 million jobs and May had 151.629 million for an actual increase of 687,000 jobs.
For more info see our Current Unemployment Chart and Current U.S. Employment Chart commentary:
Current Seasonally Adjusted U-3 levels are below the 3.8% lows of 2000. Prior to that we have to go all the way back to 1969 to see better unemployment levels than we have currently. If we break below 3.4% we have to go all the way back to 1953 to find lower levels and remember that was during the boom that followed WWII with a massive loss of the workforce due to the war so we probably won’t see levels that low again.
Correction: The differential was only 3.5% in August 2018 and 3.2% in September 2006 so we are only nearing the 2006 level not at the 2006 level.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their monthly employment survey results for the month of August on September 7th .
The current “Seasonally Adjusted” Unemployment Rate for August (released September 7th) is 3.9% unchanged from last month.
Looking back, Seasonally Adjusted U-3 started 2017 at 4.8% then it bounced around between 4.3% and 4.4% from April through October 2017, then it was 4.1% from October 2017 through March 2018. It was 3.9% in April, 3.8% in May, 4.0% in June, and 3.9% in July.
Typically Unemployment levels are worse in June and July so seasonally adjusting takes that into consideration.
|
Unadjusted |
Unadjusted U-3 |
|
| 2017 | 2018 | |
| May | 4.1% | 3.6% |
| June | 4.5% | 4.2% |
| July | 4.6% | 4.1% |
| August | 4.5% | 3.9% |
See Current Unemployment Chart for more info.
In August we saw a massive drop in the differential between U-3 and U-6 so perhaps we are getting closer to “full employment” the lows on this chart are at 2.7% in October 2000 and 3.2% in September 2006. Since the current differential is once again 3.2% we have reached the lows of 2006. Back in January 2017 the media was saying that we were at “Full Employment” and we couldn’t expect anything better, manufacturing jobs would never come back etc. At that time I said we had a long way to go and that the differential between the U-6 and U-3 was nowhere near bottoming (the sign of full employment) at the time the differential was around 5%. See: Is the U.S. Really at “Full Employment”? But with the differential currently at 3.2% now we are at or very near that level. Since October 2000 reached a low of 2.7% we could still go a bit lower.
See Current U-6 Unemployment Rate for more info.
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 [Read more…] about Full Employment is Near – Differential between U3 and U6 reaches September 2006 Lows
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their monthly employment survey results for the month of April on Friday May 4th .
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%.
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.
See Current Unemployment Chart for more info.
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:
Bubble Size tells us:
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 |
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.
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.
If you take the number of jobs and divide it by the population you get what percentage of the population is working. You
[Read more…] about April Unemployment Lowest Level Since 2000
On Friday March 9th 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.
See Current Unemployment Chart for more info.
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:
Bubble Size tells us:
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 |
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.
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 is almost record setting… but not for the reason you might think.
On Friday February 2nd 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.
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.
Over the last month, the actual number of people working (not seasonally adjusted) has decreased by [Read more…] about January Unemployment Almost “Record Setting”