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.
