I’m shocked that so many people are surprised by these numbers (via Atrios) :

The nation’s payroll growth slowed dramatically in July with a paltry 32,000 jobs being added_ a potentially troubling sign that the rough patch the economy hit in June was no aberration.

The unemployment rate, however, dipped down a notch to 5.5 percent last month, from 5.6 percent in June, the Labor Department reported Friday. The new jobless rate was the lowest since October 2001.

The payrolls figure and the unemployment rate can sometimes go in different directions because they are derived from two separate statistical surveys.

Economists, however, look more closely at the payroll figure as a better barometer of the health of the jobs market. The 32,000 net jobs added in July represented the smallest gain in hiring since December and followed a revised gain of just 78,000 in June, even less than previously reported. May’s payrolls also were revised down to show a gain of 208,000.

The unemployment rate is calculated based on a survey of households - a sort of poll - in which people are asked to state whether they have jobs or are looking for work. The seasonally adjusted civilian unemployment rate thus is the percentage of the labor force represented by those who are either listed as officially unemployed or searching for work. With a contraction in the size of the labor force, that dropped the unemployment rate by a minuscule 0.1 percentage point from June to July.

Analysts were expecting the economy to add anywhere from 215,000 to 247,000 jobs in July. They were predicting the jobless rate to hold steady at 5.6 percent.

Lemme dust off a graph I posted last month and plug in these new numbers.

The red line is the number of jobs created each month of this year. If you look at todays numbers, you see that the 32K is pretty consistent with the diminishing returns we’ve been seeing after the job boom of March and April (which some would say was artificially inflated anyways). The blue line however shows the unrevised totals along with the low-ball estimate by economists. If job growth has been slowing for the last three months, why would they expect a job spike?

Needless to say, the “we’re creating jobs” spin is now gonna go the way of “Where’s the beef?” and “No new taxes”. Despite Forbes’ warning that “a contraction in the size of the labor force…dropped the unemployment rate by a minuscule 0.1 percentage point”, the new economic mantra by the Bush Administration is gonna be “lowest unemployment since October 2001″. Brace yourselves. Personally, I don’t think a 5.5% unemployment rate is that impressive when the rate has been hovering around 5.6% all year, but I’m sure the people who catch these soundbytes on their local news don’t know that.