This morning’s Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation Summary was a mixed bag. Once again, the number of net new nonfarm payroll positions beat up on the published estimates, more than doubling the one I saw to 172,000. And once more, the rest of the report didn’t follow through.
Although seasonally
unadjusted unemployment rose 0.1%, in a typically slightly lower employment month,
to 4.1%, the adjusted variety held at 4.3%.
Long-term joblessness, or 27 weeks or longer, jumped 200,000 to 2
million, but the count of those working part-time for economic reasons, or
keeping shorter-hours positions while continuing to look for longer-hours ones,
lost 100,000 to 4.8 million. The labor
force participation rate sat at 61.8%, but the employment-population ratio, showing
without embellishment how likely it is for Americans to be working, gained 0.1%
to 59.1%. Average hourly private nonfarm
payroll earnings roughly matched inflation, up 12 cents to $37.53. The adjusted number of unemployed dropped
100,000 to 7.3 million, while the unadjusted one rose 136,000 to 6.904 million.
The American Job
Shortage Number or AJSN, the metric showing how many more positions could be quickly
filled if all knew they were easy to get, was up 697,000 as follows:
The largest change
came from, oddly enough, those wanting to work but not looking for it for a
year or more - they were 835,000 more numerous, adding 668,000 to the
calculation. The second largest gainer
was actual unemployment, which contributed 122,000 more. The share of the AJSN from unemployment was
36.2%, down 0.8%.
Compared with
a year before, the AJSN came out 278,000 higher, with most of the gains from
those not looking for a year or more, those not wanting a job, those discouraged,
and those unemployed. The institutional,
military, and off-the-grid category, down over one million since May 2025, provided
the largest offset.
The other possible
trend May provided was from the numbers of those not in the labor force, off
153,000 to 105,253,000, and not interested in working, which plunged 953,000 to
98,497,000. Those can both be proxies
for expected poor work prospects.
What to make
of this month? Probably not a lot of
lasting significance. People left the
labor force, but the new jobs were still there.
Per capita employment rose, but, at 4.8 million, too many people are
being stopped from moving from part-time to full-time. We’re not losing the employment battle now,
but we’re not improving at it either.
Accordingly, the turtle stayed right where he was.
