June AJSN: America’s Now Short More Than 21.5 Million Jobs as Seasonal Patterns Dominate

According to this morning’s Employment Situation Summary, the United States gained 195,000 seasonally adjusted jobs last month, with unemployment staying the same at 7.6%.  The stock market was quite happy with this news, gaining 100 points from the previous close in the first few minutes.  Should we be also?

The American Job Shortage Number (AJSN), which is not seasonally adjusted, gained over 700,000 for the second straight month, reaching a four-month high of 21.572 million new jobs that could be easily absorbed.  Here is the breakdown:

AJSN JUNE 2013	Total	Latent Demand %	Latent Demand Total
Unemployed	12,248,000	90	11,023,200
Discouraged	1,027,000	90	924,300
Family Responsibilities	218,000	30	65,400
In School or Training	239,000	50	119,500
Ill Health or Disability	132,000	10	13,200
Other	967,000	30	290,100
Did Not Search for Work In  Previous Year	3,931,000	80	3,144,800
Not Available to Work Now	639,000	30	191,700
Do Not Want a Job	81,311,000	5	4,065,550
Non-Civilian and Institutionalized, 15+	4,712,360	10	471,236
American Expatriates	6,320,000	20	1,264,000
TOTAL			21,572,986

 

Most of the change was due to typical differences between May and June, when a lot of school semesters, and term-length jobs end.  Indeed, 946,000 more people were officially unemployed than the month before, and those not able to work for being in school or training dropped almost one third.   What we cannot blame on seasonality, though, are the rises in the number of those discouraged, up 247,000 or 31%, and in the catch-all “Other” category, up 283,000 or 41%.  On the other side, the group saying they had no interest in working, the numbers of which fluctuate a remarkable amount, fell over a million. 

Other data changed little, or worsened.  Those unemployed 27 weeks or longer held at 4.3 million, labor force participation stayed at 63.5%, and the overall share of people with jobs was unchanged at 58.7%.  The number working part-time for economic reasons, wanting full-time work instead but not finding it, jumped over 300,000 to 8.2 million, tying the post-October high.  The non-seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate reached 7.8%. 

So how happy should we be with June’s jobs numbers?  They are hardly disastrous, but show no progress.  The 195,000 new positions were well above those needed to cover rising population, but would need to be sustained for over a year to bring unemployment below a hardly inspiring 7%.  Stock prices react well to expected conditions, which in this case meant running in place with American jobs.  Neither Obama’s recent emphasis on climate change nor levels of Republican initiation and cooperation in Congress give hope for anything better soon.  We are now 21.5 million jobs short, and the crisis is continuing.