- +200,000 jobs added
- U3 unemployment rate unchanged at 4.1%
- U6 underemployment rate rose 0.1% from 8.1% to 8.2%
- Not in Labor Force, but Want a Job Now: declined -137,000 from 5.308 million to 5.171 million
- Part time for economic reasons: rose +74,000 from 4.915 million to 4.989 million
- Employment/population ratio ages 25-54: fell -0.1% from 79.1% to 79.0%
- Average Weekly Earnings for Production and Nonsupervisory Personnel: rose +$.0.03 from $22.31 to $22.34, up +2.4% YoY. (Note: you may be reading different information about wages elsewhere. They are citing average wages for all private workers. I use wages for nonsupervisory personnel, to come closer to the situation for ordinary workers.)
Trump specifically campaigned on bringing back manufacturing and mining jobs. Is he keeping this promise?
- Manufacturing jobs rose by +15,000 for an average of +17,300 a month vs. the last seven years of Obama’s presidency in which an average of 10,300 manufacturing jobs were added each month.
- Coal mining jobs increased by 100 for an average of -46 a month vs. the last seven years of Obama’s presidency in which an average of -300 jobs were lost each month
November was revised downward by -36,000. December was revised upward by +12,000, for a net change of -24,000.
- the average manufacturing workweek fell -0.2 hour from 40.8 hours to 40.6 hours. This is one of the 10 components of the LEI.
- construction jobs increased by 36,000. YoY construction jobs are up +226,000.
- temporary jobs increased by +1,800.
- the number of people unemployed for 5 weeks or less increased by +45,000 from 2,235,000 to 2,280,000. The post-recession low was set over two years ago at 2,095,000.
-
- Overtime was unchanged at 3.5 hours.
- Professional and business employment (generally higher- paying jobs) increased by +23,000 and is up +448,000 YoY.
- the index of aggregate hours worked in the economy rose by +0.2%.
- the index of aggregate payrolls rose by +0.4% .
- the alternate jobs number contained in the more volatile household survey increased by +409,000 jobs. This represents an increase of 2,354,000 jobs YoY vs. 2,114,000 in the establishment survey.
- Government jobs rose by 4,000.
- the overall employment to population ratio for all ages 16 and up is unchanged at 60. m/m and is up + 0.2% YoY.
- The labor force participation rate is unchanged at 62.7 m/m and is down -0.2% YoY at 62.7%
So while we have a recent increase in employment growth, most of the other measures are either tepid or are fraying a little bit around the edges.
UPDATE: I see where the main item in most other discussions in this report is “the big jump in wages!
Ummm, not so fast. The “big raise” of 2.9% YoY is for ALL employees, including the bosses. The number for workers who aren’t managers, as I report above, is a tepid 2.4%, right about where it has been for several years. So it workers got 2.4% YoY, but workers plus bosses got 2.9% YoY, then that means the bosses gave themselves big fat raises that have not been shared with the line workers.
I’m not impressed.
Lots of great information especially how real compensation for the typical worker did not rise all that much. Another important statistic:
‘Employment/population ratio ages 25-54: fell -0.1% from 79.1% to 79.0%’.
Recall this reached 81.9% in 2000.
NDD:
Do you have a link for the boss statement? It will be fun to use that numeric.
“Recall this reached 81.9% in 2000.”
A bubble can lead to real people having real jobs, but it leads to unsustainable numbers.
“A bubble can lead to real people having real jobs”.
The Silicon Valley boom was not a bubble. Yes a few stocks got overvalued but those jobs were real. But leave it to the bubble brains to suggest otherwise.
“A nice piece by Paul Krugman on Twitter this morning about the two Silicon Valley bubbles—NASDAQ and BitCoin. NASDAQ at least had some fundamentals underlying it. BitCoin not so much: the ability to create for free a commodity with identical qualities to BitCoin and then peg it for a while before tiptoeing away renders it unstable, in the absence of a hegemon, in a way that gold is not”
http://www.bradford-delong.com/2018/02/should-read-a-nice-piece-by-paul-krugman-on-twitter-this-morning-about-the-two-silicon-valley-bubblesnasdaq-and-bitco.html
The employment gains in the late 1990’s were NOT a bubble.
I thought the “bubble” that lead to the great recession was a real estate/mortgage/banking bubble that took off in the mid aughts. Did that create lots o’ jobs? I thought it just created lots of funny money.
“5. People not in the labor force hit a record high at 95.7 million. ”
pgl,
“Yes a few stocks got overvalued but those jobs were real.”
There is an entire office park near Boston empty of the Nortel workers who were there in 1999.
A lot of dotcom jobs went away or offshore.
I guess ilsm did not get that Barry was mocking ilsm’s boy Trump especially with this stupid canard:
“5. People not in the labor force hit a record high at 95.7 million. ”
Oh yea – people in the 80’s do not have jobs. What a stupid stat but then Barry wrote it in order to mock right wing trolls. But ilsm does not know that!
“There is an entire office park near Boston empty of the Nortel workers who were there in 1999.”
Really – Boston’s economy is that bad off even today? Trump must be doing a really awful job!
run, re the bosses getting a raise:
earnings of the peons:
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t24.htm
earnings of all employees (peons + bosses): https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t19.htm
re: not in labor force at a record, and all other household survey metrics for that matter…the benchmark revision to the civilian noninstitutional population indicated that December’s population had been understated by 488,000, so all of this month’s population related metrics all had to be adjusted for that revision….with a January population increase of 183,000 on top of that, one can’t put much stake in any December to January comparisons…that’s why the BLS left the household survey “change” column blank:
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.a.htm
you can see all the numbers jump from before the revsion in December to after it in January..
Joel, that “real estate/mortgage/banking” bubble also generated a lot of new housing i.e. construction jobs. New construction especially creates jobs – appliances and furnishings etc.
“then that means the bosses gave themselves big fat raises”
Who can give themselves a raise? Even the CEO has to get the Board of Directors to approve.
Sammy:
Management is skewing the percentages and greatly for that matter. Total Private Employment (management included) is 125 million. Non-management and peons is 103 million or 82% of the total. To get an increase of 4 tenths of one percent across all 125 million is a hefty increase. Maybe we can get NDD to calculate it for us as I am tired. It is the classical ratio analysis.
18% increase the entire percentage 4 tenths of 1%. Management increases were well beyond the 2.9%.
run,
What did they do? Just call up HR and say “hey I need you to increase my paycheck by $10K per year.”? I want to know because I would love to give myself a raise.
It does not matter. What does matter is the 2.9% is claimed for all workers when it is simply not true and when 82% of the total only received 2.4%. Pushing the inflation button due to wage increases for less than 20% of the population is not sensible. I will look at it later.