Chalk up another quarter million jobs

[RunInRed 16,992]

But but but ... The sky is falling!

U.S. Job Growth Hits Fastest Pace in 9 Months

The economy created jobs at the fastest pace in nine months in January and the unemployment rate dropped to a near three-year low of 8.3 percent, indicating last quarter's growth carried into early 2012.

Nonfarm payrolls jumped 243,000, the Labor Department said on Friday, the most since April and beating economists' expectations for a gain of only 150,000.

Economists had expected the jobless rate to hold steady at 8.5 percent. The rate has dropped 0.8 percentage point since August.

The decline last month reflected large gains in employment in the separate household survey from which the unemployment rate is derived. Fewer people left the labor force.

Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/2012/02/03/january-employment-report-jobs/?test=latestnews#ixzz1lKaVZfae

The gains in employment were broad-based, including manufacturing, construction, temporary help agencies, accounting firms, restaurants and retailers. The number of industries showing job gains climbed to 64.1 in January from 62.4 a month earlier.

Factory workers put in an average 41.9 hours of work each week, the most since January 1998, while overtime hours climbed to the highest since March 2007. Manufacturing payrolls increased by 50,000 in January, the most in a year.

...

“We are hiring quite rapidly now, all in sales and service,” Ranadive said last week at the World Economic Forum’s annual conference in Davos, Switzerland. “It’s a good time to hire.”

Construction companies added 21,000 workers last month. Government payrolls decreased by 14,000 in January, reflecting cuts at the federal and local levels.

Average hourly earnings rose 0.2 percent to $23.29, today’s report showed. The average work week for all workers held at 34.5 hours.

The so-called underemployment rate -- which includes part- time workers who’d prefer a full-time position and people who want work but have given up looking -- decreased to 15.1 percent from 15.2 percent.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-03/payrolls-in-u-s-jumped-243-000-in-january-unemployment-rate-drops-to-8-3-.html

[jj3jordan 2,125]

Are you REALLY happy with where Obama is taking this country?

[Justin5 20]

Are you REALLY happy with where Obama is taking this country?

All things considered? Yes. Very happy.

[Tigermike 3,425]

While the job creation is “well above expectations”, there’s another record that masks the real unemployment number.

Namely 1.2 million workers (another record) fell out of the labor force. That’s one reason the official rate looks good.

And, probably the most important number to be considered – the labor participation rate – fell to 63.7% which is a 30 year low and reflects the loss of those 1.2 million workers from the work force. Neither of those numbers are good.

That said, the report on the numbers of jobs created is a good report and may signal some growth. It is, for a change, above the maintenance level of jobs. But you have to keep in mind that in overall terms, and despite the official numbers, the job situation still has a long, long way to go.

Implied Unemployment Rate Rises To 11.5%, Spread To Propaganda Number Surges To 30 Year High

Sick of the BLS propaganda? Then do the following calculation with us: using BLS data, the US civilian non-institutional population was 242,269 in January, an increase of 1.7 million month over month: apply the long-term average labor force participation rate of 65.8% to this number (because as chart 2 below shows, people are not retiring as the popular propaganda goes: in fact labor participation in those aged 55 and over has been soaring as more and more old people have to work overtime, forget retiring), and you get 159.4 million: that is what the real labor force should be. The BLS reported one? 154.4 million: a tiny 5 million difference. Then add these people who the BLS is purposefully ignoring yet who most certainly are in dire need of labor and/or a job to the 12.758 million reported unemployed by the BLS and you get 17.776 million in real unemployed workers. What does this mean? That using just the BLS denominator in calculating the unemployed rate of 154.4 million, the real unemployment rate actually rose in January to 11.5%. Compare that with the BLS reported decline from 8.5% to 8.3%. It also means that the spread between the reported and implied unemployment rate just soared to a fresh 30 year high of 3.2%. And that is how with a calculator and just one minute of math, one strips away countless hours of BLS propaganda.

Difference between Reported and Implied Unemployment Rate

And why the Labor Force Participation rate is not declining due to retirement.

link

[Tigermike 3,425]

On the downside, the closely watched labor-force participation number, which can skew the unemployment rate, fell to 63.7 percent, the lowest since May 1983. The number of those working part-time for economic reasons rose 1.2 percent.

Long-term unemployment, though, remains a problem, with the duration dropping from a near-record 40.8 weeks to 40.1 weeks.

Also, the level of discouraged workers surged, rising 7 percent to its highest level since December 2010.

Job growth remains one of the two missing pieces of the recovery puzzle, even though the rate has been on a steady trek lowe

Nope it's not Fox.

[Justin5 20]

Keep in mind, another reason you are seeing some go out of the labor force is under the Affordable Care Act's Early Retiree program.

http://www.healthreform.gov/affordablecareact.html

People dont have to keep working to stay alive.

[au2004ece 30]

Our government stats are propaganda jokes. Election year?

Magic skyrocketing of labor force withdrawal.

[Justin5 20]

Ignoring that odd 2k blip recently - you can reasonably expect that the total people not in the labor force will always rise over time, as our population does the same. So thats not particularly odd.

The 2k blip is a little odd though. Doesnt change anything though.

[au2004ece 30]

Ignoring that odd 2k blip recently - you can reasonably expect that the total people not in the labor force will always rise over time, as our population does the same. So thats not particularly odd.

The 2k blip is a little odd though. Doesnt change anything though.

The number on the left is the number of thousands. That's a 2,000,000 blip.

The labor participation rate is a 30 year low.

A month ago, we joked when we said that for Obama to get the unemployment rate to negative by election time, all he has to do is to crush the labor force participation rate to about 55%. Looks like the good folks at the BLS heard us: it appears that the people not in the labor force exploded by an unprecedented record 1.2 million. No, that's not a typo: 1.2 million people dropped out of the labor force in one month! So as the labor force increased from 153.9 million to 154.4 million, the non institutional population increased by 242.3 million meaning, those not in the labor force surged from 86.7 million to 87.9 million. Which means that the civilian labor force tumbled to a fresh 30 year low of 63.7% as the BLS is seriously planning on eliminating nearly half of the available labor pool from the unemployment calculation. As for the quality of jobs, as withholding taxes roll over Year over year, it can only mean that the US is replacing high paying FIRE jobs with low paying construction and manufacturing. So much for the improvement.

[au2004ece 30]

So if the rest of the unemployed just give up looking, we can have a 0% unemployment rate with the ridiculous way we calculate unemployment.

YAY!!

Why didn't we think of this before? Just don't count all those people that don't have a job and you can solve unemployment.

[Justin5 20]

Ignoring that odd 2k blip recently - you can reasonably expect that the total people not in the labor force will always rise over time, as our population does the same. So thats not particularly odd.

The 2k blip is a little odd though. Doesnt change anything though.

The number on the left is the number of thousands. That's a 2,000,000 blip.

The labor participation rate is a 30 year low.

A month ago, we joked when we said that for Obama to get the unemployment rate to negative by election time, all he has to do is to crush the labor force participation rate to about 55%. Looks like the good folks at the BLS heard us: it appears that the people not in the labor force exploded by an unprecedented record 1.2 million. No, that's not a typo: 1.2 million people dropped out of the labor force in one month! So as the labor force increased from 153.9 million to 154.4 million, the non institutional population increased by 242.3 million meaning, those not in the labor force surged from 86.7 million to 87.9 million. Which means that the civilian labor force tumbled to a fresh 30 year low of 63.7% as the BLS is seriously planning on eliminating nearly half of the available labor pool from the unemployment calculation. As for the quality of jobs, as withholding taxes roll over Year over year, it can only mean that the US is replacing high paying FIRE jobs with low paying construction and manufacturing. So much for the improvement.

Well please provide a link or properly labeled axises next time.

[autigeremt 6,970]

Are you REALLY happy with where Obama is taking this country?

All things considered? Yes. Very happy.

Very sad.

[80Tiger 906]

Ignoring that odd 2k blip recently - you can reasonably expect that the total people not in the labor force will always rise over time, as our population does the same. So thats not particularly odd.

The 2k blip is a little odd though. Doesnt change anything though.

That is why you look at the percentages. It would not be a problem if those not in the labor force was growing if the participation percentage was not dropping. By manipulating the number of people that are "counted" as participants, we are given an unemployment number that is bogus. It is stated each month on this board. If the number of labor participants had remained the same from the start of this administration to now, the unemployment number would be between 10 and 11 percent. In other words if we were counting apples to apples, the picture would reflect a truer more dismal picture.

[au2004ece 30]

Ignoring that odd 2k blip recently - you can reasonably expect that the total people not in the labor force will always rise over time, as our population does the same. So thats not particularly odd.

The 2k blip is a little odd though. Doesnt change anything though.

That is why you look at the percentages. It would not be a problem if those not in the labor force was growing if the participation percentage was not dropping. By manipulating the number of people that are "counted" as participants, we are given an unemployment number that is bogus. It is stated each month on this board. If the number of labor participants had remained the same from the start of this administration to now, the unemployment number would be between 10 and 11 percent. In other words if we were counting apples to apples, the picture would reflect a truer more dismal picture.

As tigermike pointed out, the rate would be 11.5% with the same participation rate.

Also, the drop in participation rate is not due to retirements as stated by Justin. Since 2008, the participation rate of Age 55+ has remained steady while all of the participation rate declines are in the Age 16-54 group.

[BamaGrad03 0]

I find it interesting that we keep seeing gains in employment years after Obama's stimulus package failed to produce such results.

I find it alarming that you guys are willing to attribute this to Obama and marginalize the credit that should go to the private sector. All of Obama's job stimulus policies dried up long ago - producing very few jobs. Now that his policies are over and done with and we start adding jobs...now it's something HE'S done?

Come on guys. Be real.

[Justin5 20]

I find it interesting that we keep seeing gains in employment years after Obama's stimulus package failed to produce such results.

I find it alarming that you guys are willing to attribute this to Obama and marginalize the credit that should go to the private sector. All of Obama's job stimulus policies dried up long ago - producing very few jobs. Now that his policies are over and done with and we start adding jobs...now it's something HE'S done?

Come on guys. Be real.

Or in your version of 'being real' he gets all of the blame, none of the credit. Suuuuuure.

[Tigermike 3,425]

I find it interesting that we keep seeing gains in employment years after Obama's stimulus package failed to produce such results.

I find it alarming that you guys are willing to attribute this to Obama and marginalize the credit that should go to the private sector. All of Obama's job stimulus policies dried up long ago - producing very few jobs. Now that his policies are over and done with and we start adding jobs...now it's something HE'S done?

Come on guys. Be real.

Or in your version of 'being real' he gets all of the blame, none of the credit. Suuuuuure.

Or in your version 'everything is looking up!'

In reality in January, the number of Part Time workers rose by 699K, the most ever, from 27,040K to 27,739K, the third highest number in the history of this series. How about Full time jobs? They went from 113,765 to 113,845. An 80K increase. So the epic January number of 141.6 million employed, which rose by 847K at the headline level: only about 10 % of that was full time jobs.

Only 10% were full time jobs.

[BamaGrad03 0]

I find it interesting that we keep seeing gains in employment years after Obama's stimulus package failed to produce such results.

I find it alarming that you guys are willing to attribute this to Obama and marginalize the credit that should go to the private sector. All of Obama's job stimulus policies dried up long ago - producing very few jobs. Now that his policies are over and done with and we start adding jobs...now it's something HE'S done?

Come on guys. Be real.

Or in your version of 'being real' he gets all of the blame, none of the credit. Suuuuuure.

No, I think he gets neither. You can't blame him for what he inherited. Just like you can't blame bush for the housing bubble or credit default swaps.

I get tired of presidents getting killed or praised just because of when they happen to be in office. Obama, for the most part, has been jobs and economy neutral. 2011 wasn't a great year, but I don't think it would have been great with a republican in office.

But I don't think there's some grand list of policies that Obama has enacted that you can show creating a ton of jobs. And even the most staunch liberal should be able to admit that we overpaid with his stimulus package.

[au2004ece 30]

I find it interesting that we keep seeing gains in employment years after Obama's stimulus package failed to produce such results.

I find it alarming that you guys are willing to attribute this to Obama and marginalize the credit that should go to the private sector. All of Obama's job stimulus policies dried up long ago - producing very few jobs. Now that his policies are over and done with and we start adding jobs...now it's something HE'S done?

Come on guys. Be real.

Or in your version of 'being real' he gets all of the blame, none of the credit. Suuuuuure.

No, I think he gets neither. You can't blame him for what he inherited. Just like you can't blame bush for the housing bubble or credit default swaps.

I get tired of presidents getting killed or praised just because of when they happen to be in office. Obama, for the most part, has been jobs and economy neutral. 2011 wasn't a great year, but I don't think it would have been great with a republican in office.

But I don't think there's some grand list of policies that Obama has enacted that you can show creating a ton of jobs. And even the most staunch liberal should be able to admit that we overpaid with his stimulus package.

You are correct. Too much is made about what happens in the short-term while everyone ignores the long-term.

The housing crisis was a long-term problem that hit in 2007-2008. The jobs crisis has also been building for a long time.

The long-term effects of Obama's main efforts with our government will be horrible.

Obamacare is a jobs killer and the huge debt will be a continual drag while the deficit spending creating the extra debt can give short-term boosts.

[RunInRed 16,992]

January was the 23rd consecutive month of private sector job growth for whatever that's worth...

[au2004ece 30]

January was the 23rd consecutive month of private sector job growth for whatever that's worth...

Do you have that same graph color coded for control of congress instead of presidency?

Hopefully congress will continue to block all the job killing activities that obama wishes for.

[AFTiger 282]

The loss of jobs is why the unemployment rate is going down. When you add in the population gain not included in the job seeking category the rate is higher.

Here's The Truth About The Massive, Million Plus Spike In People Not In The Labor Force

Joe Weisenthal|inShare13

There's a ton of hype today about the 1 million+ spike in people not in the labor force, and whether it undermines the good jobs data.

The chart is actually alarming at first blush.

Yow! Is someone cooking the books? Was there a gigantic exodus of people out of the workforce?

Hate to burst your conspiracy theories, but no.

As SilverOz at The Bonddad Blog points out, the BLS' own announcement points out that starting this year, brand new population data from the 2010 census is being used:

"Effective with data for January 2012, updated population estimates which reflect the results of Census2010 have been used in the household survey. Population estimates for the household survey are developed by the U.S. Census Bureau. Each year, the Census Bureau updates the estimates to reflect new information and assumptions about the growth of the population during the decade. The change in population reflected in the new estimates results from the introduction of the Census 2010 count as the new population base, adjustments for net international migration, updated vital statistics and other information, and some methodological changes in the estimation process. The vast majority of the population change, however, is due to the change in base population from Census 2000 to Census 2010.

So there you go. New population data is in. Thus this number went up.

Meanwhile, there was a big drop in the participation rate, as Jim Pethokoukis notes. He even goes so far as to call the 8.3 percent unemployment rate "phony."

Well, this too is flawed.

Again, more from the BLS:

The adjustment increased the estimated size of the civilian noninstitutional population in December by 1,510,000, the civilian labor force by 258,000, employment by 216,000, unemployment by 42,000, and persons not in the labor force by 1,252,000. Although the total unemployment rate was unaffected, the labor force participation rate and the employment-population ratio were each reduced by 0.3 percentage point. This was because the population increase was primarily among persons 55 and older and, to a lesser degree, persons 16 to 24 years of age. Both these age groups have lower levels of labor force participation than the general population."

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-the-truth-about-the-massive-million-plus-spike-in-people-not-in-the-labor-force-2012-2#ixzz1lLtVk72M

[AURaptor 1,137]

Obama's magical paradise economy is in full effect.

All our problems are solved.

[Tigermike 3,425]

I'll believe those job numbers next month.

In November, 2007, 63.15% of Americans had a job. In Feburary, 2012, it was 57.76%.

In November, 2007, there were 147,118,000 Americans working. This month, that number was 139,944,000. That’s 7.1 million jobs that have disappeared.

If the labor force participation rate was the same today as it was in November 2007 (66.1%), today’s unemployment rate would be 12.61%.

[autigeremt 6,970]

You can't believe a word coming out of this administration. It's insane, and yet we have people so ideological in thought that take what they produce as gospel. I just don't understand it, but I do think this administration wants to keep the people confused so they can steal the country and it's future.