Optimism Creates A Few More Jobs
File this one under “good news for us, bad news for everybody” :
The pace of U.S. hiring slumped sharply in June after several months of robust gains, the government reported on Friday, as employers added fewer than half the number of payroll jobs forecast and hours of work shrank.The Labor Department said only 112,000 jobs were created last month, far fewer than the 250,000 that Wall Street analysts had anticipated. April and May new-job totals were revised down, to 324,000 and 235,000 respectively, from 346,000 and 248.000.
The unemployment rate was unchanged, as expected, at 5.6 percent.
June still represented a 10th straight month of job growth that has added about 1.5 million workers to payrolls, but the unexpectedly steep slowdown last month may make it harder for President Bush to campaign for re-election in November on a claim of accelerating economic momentum.
In a sign of broader weakness, the average workweek eased to 33.6 hours in June from 33.8 in May, the shortest since a matching level in December.
All of June’s job growth in service industries. The manufacturing sector lost 11,000 jobs, a reversal after four straight months in which factories had added jobs following years of decline.
Bad employment news is never a good thing to hear, even when your suspicions about the economic effects of the Bush administration’s policies are confirmed. Since Bush loves to talk about “jobs created”, here’s a graphical representation of what we’ll all start referring to as Bush’s “mini-boom” :
Even if we give Bush full credit for the enormous rise in March job creation (which didn’t help the unemployment rate), then we’re still looking at diminishing returns. Just looking at the chart, you can see that the number of jobs created is trending down and is currently below January’s numbers. Bush’s policies are bad for the economy and these new numbers show that even more.
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I may have misread this, but didn’t the job growth in March also take into account the ending of the strike by the California grocery workers. I thought that if you took out those jobs then the total number of jobs gained in March was actually inline with the surrounding months. Perhaps I had misread but if not, then the Bush Mini-boom is really non-existent.
Comment by wilsona — July 2, 2004 @ 11:08 am
Yeah, the supermarket workers were included in that number, but they only accounted for around 40K or so. Take those away and you’ve still got a big spike compared to the month before.
Comment by greg — July 2, 2004 @ 11:17 am
i read somewhere that the unemployment rate is only based on the number of people who are collecting unemplyment checks. unemployment only lasts a certain ammount of time, once that time runs out you are no longer accounted for as part of that 5.6% unemployed. the real unemployment percentage could be (and most likely is, much much higher but they don’t really have any way of calculating it. so, when you hear that 5.6% realize that that’s only the people who have lost their job within the last 6 months-1 year. everyone that lost their job over a year ago or more is unaccountable. that guy on the side of the road with the “will work for food” sign has been unemployed for a lot longer and is no longer counted. we have a much worse problem than anyone really realises.
Comment by tom — July 2, 2004 @ 12:01 pm
Actually, I think the unemployment rate is calculated by a phone poll, though that still would not include your “will work for food” guy. But it would include someone who was looking for work, whose unemployment insurance had run out.
Comment by dAnimal — July 2, 2004 @ 1:14 pm
There are a number of methods for calculating the unemployment rate. Click here for a description of these methods. If you count discouraged workers, underemployed workers, and other “marginally attached” workers, the 5.6% unemplyment rate jumps to 9.6%.
Comment by greg — July 2, 2004 @ 1:28 pm
You’re right that there are multiple ways of calculating unemployment. However, just so we’re on the same page, when papers quote the “unemployment rate,” they are going by the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ version, and they do a poll specifically of households, I think over the phone. Now, as Greg points out, there are other ways that might be better true indicators of “unemployment” that might push the numbers higher. For example, if someone just gives up searching for work due to frustration over the inability to find a good job, that person “leaves the job market,” pushing the official unemployment rate down even though really the unemployed people out there have not diminished.
Comment by dAnimal — July 2, 2004 @ 1:55 pm
I understand that over 25% of the newly created jobs went to non-Americans. If true, I don’t see how that helps our unemployment problem.
Comment by 1soni — July 3, 2004 @ 4:40 am
Yes, go Bush Eeekonomy!!!!! Lots of jobs are being created, and after losing my Government Job on January 1, I have been forced into temp jobs. So technically, if I registered with 4 agencies, then that means that I have 4 jobs! See, that’s 4x’s the jobs that I had last year, we must be in a great economy. Oh, and its also wonderful that due to the new federal regulations on OT, I work 45 hours a week and don’t get paid time and a half for the OT!….Yay Bush, thanks for helping out the small businesses of America by once again sticking it to the working class!
Oh and FYI, in regards to being “under-employed”. I have a law degree and practical courtroom experience and I am doing the job where a “paralegal certificate is preferred”….for the same amount as someone who doesn’t even have an Associate’s degree. So I guess I wasted 7 years and $100k for nothing!
Comment by mbf1978 — July 7, 2004 @ 2:59 pm