Today’s Jobs Report Didn’t Go Much of Anywhere – AJSN Latent Demand Down To 15.9 Million on Lower Number of Expatriates

This morning’s Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation Summary was supposed to show a greatly reduced number of net new nonfarm payroll positions, but at 12,000 it didn’t even approach the 110,000 and 115,000 published estimates.  How did the other figures turn out?

Seasonally adjusted and unadjusted unemployment stayed the same, at 4.1% and 3.9% respectively, with the adjusted count of jobless up 200,000 to 7 million.  Of those there were 1.6 million long-term, or without work for 27 weeks or longer, down 100,000.  Those working part-time for economic reasons, or holding short-hours positions while seeking full-time ones, remained at 4.6 million.  The two measures of how common it is for Americans to be working or officially unemployed, the labor force participation rate and the employment-population ratio, both worsened, coming in at 62.6% and 60.0% for drops of 0.1% and 0.2%.  The unadjusted number of employed was off 108,000 to 161,938,000.  Better, though, were private nonfarm payroll wages, which gained 10 cents, more than inflation, to $35.46 per hour. 

The American Job Shortage Number or AJSN, the metric showing how many additional positions could be quickly filled if all knew they would be easy to get, fell 736,000, almost all from a much-reduced estimate of the number of Americans living outside the United States, as follows:

The share of the AJSN from official unemployment rose 2.3% to 37.6%.  Compared with a year before, the loss of 900,000 from the expatriates’ contribution was mostly offset by 480,000 more from unemployment and 154,000 from those not looking for work for the previous year, with other changes small, for a 247,000 fall. 

What happened this time?  To judge that, we next look at the measures telling us how many people left or entered the workforce.  Those were a 469,000 rise in the count of those claiming no interest in a job, and 219,000 more overall not in the labor force.  There was also a consistent shrinkage in the categories of marginal attachment, the 3^rd through 6^th and 8^th rows above.  Those departing workers were why our unemployment rates didn’t worsen, given fewer new positions than our population increase could absorb.  October’s deficiency, possibly created mostly from storms and sudden layoffs, may well greatly reverse itself next time, but it is in the books.  Accordingly, I saw the turtle take a small step backwards.

Autonomous Vehicles in 3Q24: A Pause, A Scandal, and a Fine

They’re still in the news, so what has been going on with driverless cars?

On July 23rd, we had two stories on the status of one manufacturer’s efforts.  In “GM indefinitely pauses Cruise Origin autonomous vehicle while it refocuses unit” (Daniella Genovese, Fox Business), the word was that General Motors would be “focusing their next autonomous vehicle on the next-generation Chevrolet Bolt, instead of the Origin, which had been facing regulatory uncertainty because of its unique design.”  Later that day, though, we saw that “G.M. Will Restart Cruise Taxi Operations” (Neal E. Boudette, The New York Times), a report that “General Motors said on Tuesday that its Cruise driverless-taxi division has restarted test operations in three Sun Belt cities, using self-driving cars with human safety drivers who will monitor the vehicles and intervene if needed.”  The second half of that sentence is important to note, as is the word “test,” necessary since “the vehicles will not carry paying passengers for now.”  No clear progress here.

How about one of GM’s competitors?  They produced a nuisance, as “Endless Honking of Waymo’s Driverless Taxis Wakes a Neighborhood” (Sara Ruberg, The New York Times, August 14^th).  This was about a Waymo-rented San Francisco parking lot used for the vehicles to “idle in then they weren’t making trips or charging.  But because the vehicles are programmed to honk when nearing other vehicles and then change directions, the more crowded the lot became, the more honks erupted.”  Whoops.  The company has said it has since “updated the software.”  Three weeks later, another piece asked, since “Waymo’s Robot Taxis Are Almost Mainstream.  Can They Now Turn a Profit?” (Eli Tan, The New York Times, September 4^th).  Lost in the autonomous follies has been news that “Waymo is now completing over 100,000 rides in San Francisco, Phoenix, and Los Angeles – double the number in May.”  That’s highly favorable news, even if “robot taxi services are not profitable right now.”  As for other locations, “autonomous vehicle experts” see potential in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Hoboken, Westchester County, and “even Long Island.”

I’m calling this a scandal since the public was deceived, but perhaps it wasn’t, given the results above: “When Self-Driving Cars Don’t Actually Drive Themselves” (Cade Metz, The New York Times, published September 11^th and updated September 21^st.  The author, a long-time writer on autonomous transportation, reported that he had taken “his first ride in a self-driving car nearly a decade ago,” and then “felt a deep sense of awe that machines had mastered a skill that once belonged solely to humans.”  He realized afterwards that he was wrong, that such cars “could not yet match the power of the human brain,” and as of the article date “they still can’t.”  He checked out a Zoox “command center” which provided “help from human technicians” when “the company’s self-driving vehicles… struggle to drive themselves.”  Among other things, these as-needed operators rerouted impeded cars, and “all robot taxi companies operate command centers like” that one.  We knew about the shortcomings Metz also mentioned, such as the similarly misleading Tesla “full self-driving” technology that wasn’t, but more such misrepresentations will only serve to discourage people from thinking the current state is as good as it is.  Perhaps all companies need to do is to label it accurately.  For now, though, the author has discovered that the capabilities of autonomous vehicles “and so many other forms of artificial intelligence… are not as powerful as they first seem.  When we, the people, see a bit of human behavior in a machine, we tend to think, subconsciously, that it can do everything we can do.  But we should give ourselves more credit,” a point also made in similar-topic article “Self-driving cars have a dirty little secret,” by Frank Landymore on September 14^th in Futurism.com. 

A sad follow-up to General Motors’ problems above was that “Cruise, G.M.’s Self-Driving Unit, Will Pay $1.5 Million Federal Fine” (Jack Ewing, The New York Times, September 30^th).  That was for “failing to properly report an accident in which one of its self-driving taxis severely injured a pedestrian last year.”  That’s not a lot of money in this industry, and I hope it will not slow the company.  We’re still looking at almost 40,000 driver-caused deaths per year, and we need to stay focused on ending that.

Kamala Harris for President

After most of this one-of-a-kind campaign, reminiscent of 1968 but hardly the same, we’re 18 days away from making our presidential decisions.  The right choice is no foggier than it was last time.

The Republican nominee in 2020 and election winner in 2016 runs again as the first major-party choice to stand for a third time since Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940.  That’s not the problem, and his age, 78, which would make him older on Inauguration Day than any other president, isn’t the main one either.  Donald Trump has more flaws and disqualifying characteristics than any Democratic or Republican nominee I have seen since I started following campaigns with Nixon-Humphrey.  He is a convicted felon who has consistently shown he does not want to follow our laws and Constitution.  He has a bizarre, apparently insatiable sweet tooth for lying, way beyond any of his competitors even in this often-sordid profession.  He has shown affinity with the world’s dictators, while saying many things indicating he would strive to be one himself.  He has threatened legal and even military retribution against those taking lawful measures to stop him.  His attitudes toward women, over a wide spectrum of areas, are disastrous.  His delusions, such as him being the true 2020 winner, which he has often insisted be supported by those working with him, have persisted.  And on jobs and the economy, his proposed extensive and expensive tariffs would drastically worsen both.

Nothing reported in news sources has been able to reverse the Trump tide.  His advocates have remained impervious to these issues, even when they are shown to be the truth.  And others have expressed a willingness to pollsters to join his side.  The reasons for his popularity will be discussed for decades or centuries to come, but common sense or prudent judgment will not be among them.  Some of his heavy contributors are extremely wealthy, expecting to save tens or hundreds or millions of dollars on his likelihood of taxing them less, but that does not make them worthy of emulation by the rest of us.  Perhaps the largest lesson of the 20^th century was that those who people find charismatic may lead us in devastatingly wrong directions, and caution about Trump seems a clear response.

His opponent, Kamala Harris, is a former district attorney who is currently the vice president.  She has shortcomings, but has shown in public appearances to be sober, reasonable, lawful, and almost always truthful.  We don’t know exactly how well she would work out, but it is obvious that her downside is vastly smaller.  As contrasted with her opponent, who has been described as a weak man’s idea of a strong man, Harris is forceful without being abrasive, and will work with politicians on both sides.  That is what we need in 2025 and beyond.

The best justification for a Trump vote I have heard was from one who said he was a reprehensible person, but she was not choosing a friend.  I don’t buy that, since the world is too dangerous, and our allies too valuable, for us to pick someone who needs to be contained.  And we still have a large nuclear arsenal with which the president would have great scope.  Junkyard dogs can be mean, but presidents need not be.

I have not mentioned Harris’s or Trump’s running mates, but both seem fair choices.  Either Tim Walz or J.D. Vance would rate to be adequate if circumstances put them into the top job, and, in the case of Vance, would get the presidency in steadier hands.  There is also little here about either candidate’s meager list of proposed policies, since that is not what this election is about. 

As of yesterday morning, the PredictIt site showed its contributors giving a combined five-point winning-percentage advantage to Trump.  We can do better, and massive amounts of safety and prosperity may depend on whether we do.  We need look only at what news and information sources, even including those generally favorable to his cause, say the realities are.  If this registered Republican who might have chosen a conservative nominee from that party can avoid him, so can you.  And please vote. 

Royal Flush Press endorses Kamala Harris for president.

A Strong Jobs Report Gathered Before the Interest Rate Cut, with AJSN Showing Latent Demand Almost a Million Lower

Commentary I read before this morning’s Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation Summary’s release said that it would be a critical installment, mainly because of the effect it would have on the Federal Reserve’s two remaining 2024 interest rate decisions.

It turned out to show real improvement.  The number of net new nonfarm payroll positions exceeded its 150,000 consensus estimate with 254,000.  Seasonally adjusted unemployment dropped another 0.1% to 4.1%, the same place it was three months before.  There were 6.8 million unemployed people, down 300,000, and the unadjusted rate fell from 4.4% to 3.9%, some but not all due to seasonality.  The count of people working part-time for economic reasons, or keeping such jobs while thus far unsuccessfully seeking longer-hours ones, erased the last report’s 200,000 gain, going back to 4.6 million.  Those officially unemployed and looking for work for 27 weeks or longer, though, gained 100,000 to 1.6 million.  The unadjusted number of employed grew 700,000 to 162,046,000.  The two best measures of how many people are working or one step away, the employment-population ratio and the labor force participation rate, gained 0.2% and stayed the same to reach 60.2% and 62.7%.  Average private nonfarm payroll earnings increased 15 cents, almost double the effect of inflation, to $35.36.  More people continued to leave the labor force, with those claiming no interest gaining almost 600,000 to add to last time’s 1.3 million, reaching 94,920,000.

The American Job Shortage Number or AJSN, the Royal Flush Press measure showing how many additional positions could be quickly filled if all knew they would be easy to get, lost 980,000, as follows:

The effect of fewer people officially jobless was responsible for 800,000 of the drop, and those interested but not looking for a year or more cut off another 340,000.  Gains in the second through sixth categories above offset that by 150,000.  The share of the AJSN from those unemployed fell 2.6% to 35.3%.  Compared with a year before, the AJSN has increased 433,000, almost exactly that amount from those officially unemployed. 

What happened here?  Still many more new positions than we can expect, and that along with continued workforce departures assured our unemployment-rate’s lowering.  The job market is healthy, but hardly overheated.  That means the Federal Reserve ball will go back to the inflation court, and then back to the next jobs report on November 1st, five days before the next Fed meeting starts.  We are very much in the hunt for another quarter-point decrease, but more than that, considering the progress above, is less likely.  The turtle did, this time, take a moderate step forward.

Remote Work: The Pendulum Has Swung Back to the Office

As I have written repeatedly before, employer attitudes on working from home have oscillated back and forth over the past three-plus decades.  In the 2010s, hybrid labor, or putting in time in some combination between in the office and elsewhere, was getting reestablished, with glowing reviews of home productivity gains as well as work-life balance encouraging organizations to allow a large portion of time to be spent out of sight, and, as always, greatly out of mind.  By early 2020 the pendulum was moving toward not allowing that, but the pandemic necessitated it, with not only physical proximity issues but a greatly tightening labor market facilitating too many people to leave if they did not get the schedules they wanted.

Now, with Covid-19 almost no factor and unemployment, especially for information technology positions, growing, opposition to non-office work is again becoming entrenched.  What is the evidence of that?

One piece is the emerging of a new expression, as featured in “No more “coffee badging”” (Business Insider, July 21^st).  The term applies to “employees who badge in, get coffee, and leave shortly after to satisfy their (return to office) requirements.”  As of just before this date, Amazon was “getting serious” about ending this custom, and, as we shall see, there was more to come.

Especially in transition times, private organizations have varied greatly in what they allow.  One large public one, capable of setting national, multi-installation rules, is the subject of “To be remote or not to be?  That is the burning federal workplace question” (Gleb Tsipursky, Fox News, August 16^th).  While “many federal agencies have implemented hybrid work models, allowing leaders to refine strategies to adapt to evolving employee needs and mission-driven objectives,” “there is tension between this flexible approach and congressional legislative efforts such as the Back to Work Act of 2024… a bipartisan bill that seeks to limit telework for federal employees to no more than 40% of their workdays per pay period.”  That is broad-based and specific, and nothing that would have been taken seriously in 2014.

As well as the stick, businesses are also using the carrot.  “The Hotelification of Offices, With Signature Scents and Saltwater Spas” (Stacey Freed, The New York Times, August 18^th).  Such things have been controversial since they began appearing around the turn of the century, especially when remote work has been unfashionable.  This case is “the Springline complex in Menlo Park, Calif.,” where employees and others “are surrounded by a sense of comfort and luxury often found at high-end hotels:  off-white walls with a Roman clay finish, a gray-and-white marble coffee table and a white leather bench beneath an 8-by-4 resin canvas etched with the words “Hello, tomorrow,” and “hints of salty sea air, white water lily, dry musk and honeydew melon linger in the air.”  You get the idea.  While “companies have over the years improved their spaces in the hopes of getting more out of employees,” this kind of thing is now transparently designed to make people happier about reporting in person, and will not be immune to backlashes as they figure that out.

Another change many companies are making turned up in “Downtown’s lost prestige” (Bloomberg, August 27^th).  “The US office market is splitting in two:  Investors are writing off the value of older buildings downtown as newer developments outside traditional business hubs become prestige destinations,” resulting in “more than half-a-trillion dollars of value” being “erased from US offices from 2019 through 2023.”  Suburban desk farms are nothing new – I started my AT&T cubicle career at one 35 years ago – but employers are now motivated by “trying to get employees back to their desks” by moving to “low-crime neighborhoods with plenty of shopping and parking.”

The big story here was, though, “Bosses Rejoice!  Amazon Delivers the End of Hybrid Work” (Vanessa Fuhrmans, Katherine Bindley and Chip Cutter, The Wall Street Journal, September 21).  This article, on the front page of the Exchange section and embellished with a picture of an Amazon shipping box containing someone at a plain-looking office desk, was subtitled “If you thought your two days a week of work-from-home were safe, think again.  The CEO of one of America’s largest employers just called everyone back to the office full-time,” effective January 2^nd. 

It was clearly an overreaction – Amazon does not set national workplace policy – but documented a remarkably firm and all-encompassing decision.  Per the first story above, “until (the CEO’s) memo, 4½ years after the Covid-19 pandemic sent everyone home, bosses and employees had largely reached a truce on part-time remote work,” as, while “many company leaders looked out at their substantially empty offices in quiet exasperation,” they feared top-performer departure.  Amazon’s pronouncement, “the talk of the town” in Seattle, was publicized as something “that will help both the company and its employees,” as in offices “we’ve observed that it’s easier for our teammates to learn, model, practice, and strengthen our culture,” as, in person, “collaborating, brainstorming, and inventing are simpler and more effective;  teaching and learning from one another are more seamless; and teams tend to be better connected to one another.” 

Beyond Amazon, a survey showed that while about 30% of CEOs said they “expect workers to be back in the office full-time within three years” in April.  Earlier this month that had become almost 80%.  That stunning shift gives Amazon’s decision at least the appearance of spearheading a widespread change.  There will be exceptions, but many more companies will follow, and, for now, we will hear little about the good side of remote work.

That will come back in the 2030s.  Count on it.

The Jobs Report Tells Only One Story; Consistently, AJSN Shows Latent Demand Down 250,000 to 17.6 Million

This morning’s was supposed to be a critically important Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation Summary.  How did it turn out?

The headline figure, the number of net new nonfarm payroll positions, fell a small amount short of published 160,000 and 161,000 estimates at 142,000.  Seasonally adjusted unemployment ended its monthly march upwards, falling back 0.1% to 4.2%.  Unadjusted unemployment lost the same amount, from 4.5% to 4.4%.  There were 7.1 million officially jobless people, 100,000 better.  The number of long-term unemployed, out 27 weeks or longer, was 1.5 million for the third straight month.  The two measures showing most clearly the share of people actually working or that plus officially jobless, the employment-population ratio and the labor force participation rate, held at 60.0% and 62.7%.  Average hourly private nonfarm payroll earnings gained 14 cents, more than inflation, to $35.21.  Trailing the rest was the count of people working part-time for economic reasons, or keeping such employment while thus far unsuccessfully seeking a full-time proposition, up 200,000 to 4.8 million.

The American Job Shortage Number or AJSN, our long-standing statistic showing how many positions, in addition to those now available, could be quickly filled if all knew they would be easy and routine to get, lost 258,000 as follows:

  

The fall from July’s result was almost exactly the amount from unemployment, with no other change more than 100,000.  The share of the AJSN from that, at 37.9%, was 0.8% lower. 

Compared with a year before, the AJSN was about 800,000 higher, with 713,000 added from official joblessness, 288,000 from more people wanting work but not looking for it for a year or more, and 200,000 less from a smaller number of American expatriates.  None of the other factors increased or decreased over 50,000. 

What was the one thing which happened?  People left the labor force.  Remember that last month the boost in joblessness came from those jumping back into the working pool without finding it – well, this time, they got out.  Evidence of that was the count of those not interested leaping 1.3 million, the unadjusted number of employed despite the unemployment rate’s fall losing 690,000, and the numbers above of marginal attachment – those wanting work but stopped now for family responsibilities, being in school or training, with ill health or disability, the “other” category, and especially, with a 24% reduction, discouraged – all down.  The AJSN’s drop came from the same place, as people moved to the status with the lowest latent demand.  With this event factored out, despite the 142,000 gain the American employment situation stayed right where it was.  Interest rate decisions should be unchanged from yesterday.  As for the turtle, he did not budge either.

Artificial Intelligence’s Limitations and Clear Current Problems

We’re marching through months and years since last year’s AI awakening.  We can’t fairly say that the shortcomings it has are permanent, but, as of now, what are they?

First, although computer applications have excelled at many games, such as chess, where they are vastly better than any human ever, and checkers, which was electronically solved 17 years ago, they have not done the same with bridge.  Per BBO Weekly News on July 21^st, Bill Gates said, correctly, that “bridge is one of the last games in which the computer is not better.”  Artificial intelligence progress has done nothing, so far, to change that, and it is noteworthy that even in a closed system with completely defined rules, objectives, and scoring, it has not been able to take over. 

Not only has it not replaced huge numbers of jobs, but “77% Of Employees Report AI Has Increased Workloads And Hampered Productivity, Study Finds” (Bryan Robinson, Forbes, July 23^rd).  The effort, “in partnership with The Upwork Research Institute, interviewed 2,500 global C-suite executives, full-time employees and freelancers.”  It found that “the optimistic expectations about AI’s impact are not aligning with the reality faced by many employees,” to the point where, in contrast with 96% of C-suite executives expecting AI to boost productivity… 77% of employees using AI say it has added to their workload and created challenges,” and has been “contributing to employee burnout.”  Also, 47% “of employees using AI say they don’t know how to achieve the expected productivity gains their employers expect, and 40% feel their company is asking too much of them when it comes to AI.”  This is what we used to call a disconnect.  The author recommended employers get outside help with AI efforts and measuring productivity differently, and workers to generally “embrace outside expertise.”

A similarly negative view was the subject of “Machines and the meaning of work” (Bartleby, The Economist, July 27^th).  The pseudonymous writer cited a paper claiming that although “in theory, machines can free up time for more interesting tasks; in practice, they seem to have had the opposite effect.”  Although in health care, automation can allow more time with patients, in others, as “the number of tasks that remain open to humans dwindles, hurting both the variety of work and people’s understanding of the production process,” “work becomes more routine, not less.”  Overall, “it matters whether new technologies are introduced in collaboration with employees or imposed from above, and whether they enhance or sap their sense of competence.”

Similarly, Emma Goldberg, in the New York Times on August 3^rd, asked “Will A.I. Kill Meaningless Jobs?”  If it does, it would make workers happier in the short run, but it could also contribute to “the hollowing out of the middle class.”  Although the positions that AI could absorb might be lacking in true significance, many “have traditionally opened up these white-collar fields to people who need opportunities and training, serving as accelerants for class mobility:  paralegals, secretaries, assistants.”  These roles could be replaced by ones with “lower pay, fewer opportunities to professionally ascend, and – even less meaning.”  Additionally, “while technology will transform work, it can’t displace people’s complicated feelings toward it.”  So we don’t know – but breaking even is not good enough for what is often predicted to be a trillion-dollar industry.

Back to the issue of perceived AI value is “A lack-of-demand problem” (Dan DeFrancesco, Insider Today, August 8^th).  “A chief marketing officer” may have been justified in expecting that the Google AI tools it introduced would “be an easy win,” as “in the pantheon of industries set to be upended by AI, marketing is somewhere near the top,” as the technology could “supercharge a company’s marketing department in plenty of ways,” such as by providing “personalized emails” and “determining where ads should run.” Unfortunately, per the CMO, “it hasn’t yet,” as “one tool disrupted its advertising strategy so much they stopped using it,” “another was no better at the job than a human,” and one more “was only successful about 60% of the time.”  Similar claims appear here from Morgan Stanley and “a pharma company.”  In all, “while it’s only fair to give the industry time to work out the kinks, the bills aren’t going to slow down anytime soon.”

In the meantime, per “What Teachers Told Me About A.I. in School” (Jessica Grose, The New York Times, August 14^th), AI is causing problems there, per examples of middle school students, lacking “the background knowledge or… intellectual stamina to question unlikely responses,” turning in assignments including the likes of “the Christian prophet Moses got chocolate stains out of T-shirts.”  Teachers are describing AI-based cheating as “rampant,” but are more concerned about students not learning how to successfully struggle through challenging problems.  Accordingly, they are “unconvinced of its transformative properties and aware of its pitfalls,” and “only 6 percent of American public school teachers think that A.I. tools produce more benefit than harm.”

I do not know how long these AI failings will continue.  With massive spending on the technology by its providers continuing, they will be under increasing pressure to deliver useful and accurate products.  How customers react, and how patient they will be, will eventually determine how successful artificial intelligence, as a line of business, will be over the next several years.  After some length of time, future promises will no longer pacify those now dissatisfied.  When will we reach that point?