Most Numbers Rebounded in This Morning’s Jobs Report - AJSN Shows Latent Demand Down 200,000 to 17.1 Million

This was not an unusually hotly anticipated Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation Summary.  I had to dig a bit for estimates of how many net new nonfarm positions were added, and those, given last month’s loss, turned out to be cautiously low.

That figure rose 162,000 compared with 53,000 to 65,000 published approximations, much higher but closer than July’s loss.  Other winners were unadjusted unemployment, down 0.1% to 4.3%, labor force participation, up 0.2% to 61.6%, the employment-population ratio, up the same to 59.1%, the count of people working part-time for economic reasons or holding short-hours jobs while looking thus far unsuccessfully for full-time ones, off 400,000 to 4.4 million, and average hourly private nonfarm payroll earnings which edged out inflation by climbing 13 cents to $37.75.  Unadjusted unemployment held at 4.1%.  Losers included the adjusted number of jobless, up 100,000 to 7.0 million, and those out for 27 weeks or longer which also gained 100,000, to 1.9 million.

The American Job Shortage Number or AJSN, the Royal Flush Press metric showing how many additional positions could be filled if all knew they would be easy and routine to get, lost 227,000 to reach the following:

The largest gains were from people not wanting a job and those in school or training, adding 35,000 and 30,000.  The largest losses came from those not looking for the previous year and employment-discouraged people, which subtracted 100,000 and 83,000.  The share of the AJSN from those officially unemployed edged up 0.2% to 38.9%.

Compared with a year before the AJSN has fallen 700,000, mostly from those wanting work but not searching for it for a year or more, down 355,000, and those officially unemployed who removed 329,000 from the total.  The largest offsetter was people not wanting a job, which is up three million since August and thus took away 150,000.

What happened this time?  Simple.  Many jobseekers, after July’s loss, left the market, shown by those not in the labor force increasing 320,000 and those not interested jumping almost 700,000.  Those things made a good month look even better.  I am happy with the results here, but when evened out with what we saw last time, we have just completed two mediocre months.  Still, this one by itself was a winner.  The turtle took a modest but clear step forward.