February Employment Report
The BLS released its employment report for February this morning:
Nonfarm payroll employment increased by 192,000 in February, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 8.9 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in manufacturing, construction, professional and business services, health care, and transportation and warehousing.
Here’s a bit of detail on the change in payroll employment (figures in thousands):
The private sector is doing okay. Not great, but okay. But state and local government cutbacks in spending are doing a pretty good job in making a noticeable dent in the recovery of the US job market. Headwinds indeed.
The hiring diffusion indices were just super. Hours were flat. ‘Scuse me? Why would nearly every sector be hiring, but most of them just a little bit, when weekly hours haven’t moved?
ISM, ADP and households all think hiring is running along in good shape. The payroll survey says not so much. Something not right here.
Meanwhile, as the lovely chart at Calculated Risk demonstrates month after month, the US is still out more jobs from the beginning of the recession than at the worst point in all prior post-WWII recession. In all but one of those prior recessions (1958), the recovery from the low to the pre-recession level of jobs would already be accomplished by now. In just about any non-third-world way you can think about it, the US labor market is in dreadful shape.
Kharris,
My first thought when I read the Yahoo headline was: Ya, but I’m just not feeling man.
KH, in every trend there will be a change point. Looks like it happened, now let’s see if the trend accelerates….