February’s Employment Data Didn’t Change Much, With 151,000 Net New Jobs and AJSN Showing Latent Demand Almost Stationary at 17.1 Million

This morning’s Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation Summary wasn’t the important one – that will be next month, when it will have had time to absorb the current governmental chaos.  But it still gives a good look at how employment was doing before the effects of the back-and-forth tariffs and employment cuts impacted the data.

We added 151,000 net new nonfarm payroll positions, only a bit short of the 160,000 and 170,000 estimates.  Seasonally adjusted and unadjusted unemployment each gained 0.1% to come in at 4.1% and 4.5%.  The other numbers tracked here got worse:  the adjusted count of unemployed gained 300,000 to 7.1 million, those out for 27 weeks or longer increased 100,000 to 1.5 million, the employment-population ratio and the labor force participation rate each sank 0.2% to 59.9% and 62.4%, and those working part-time for economic reasons, or keeping such jobs while thus far unsuccessfully seeking full-time ones, lurched up 400,000 – is there a story there? – to 4.9 million.  Average private nonfarm hourly payroll wages rose 6 cents, less than inflation, reaching $35.93. 

The American Job Shortage Number or AJSN, the measure showing how many new positions could be quickly filled if all knew they would be easy to get, sat in nearly the same place, gaining 27,000, as follows:

The most-changed contribution to the AJSN was from those discouraged, adding 150,000 less, almost offset by more people unemployed and more reporting they wanted work but did not look for it over the past year.  The share of the AJSN from those unemployed was up 0.5% to 39.8%.  Over the previous year, the AJSN rose less than 100,000, with a large boost in those officially jobless more than equalized by a smaller number of American expatriates.

What does all this add up to?  The number of those out of the labor force decreased 140,000, and those not interested fell 300,000, meaning that there was no great worker-pool inflow or outflow from existing people.  While the overall tone of the report was down, we can’t take those 151,000 new opportunities for granted.  Accordingly, the turtle didn’t go forward, but didn’t backtrack either.