There has been a great deal of debate over the last few years about the birth death adjustments in the BLS employment report. So, let's remove the BLS from the last 4 month's of data to see what the employment numbers would look like without the birthdeath adjustments.
In January there were 134,333,000 jobs and in February there were 133,652,000 jobs for a net loss of 681,000 jobs. In January the B/D adjustment was a (+)134. That means the net for February without the B/D adjustments was 815,000 lost.
In February there were 133,652,000 jobs and in March there were 133,000,000 jobs for a net loss of 652,000 jobs. In January the B/D adjustment was a (+)114. That means the net for February without the B/D adjustments was 766,000 lost.
In March there were 133,000,000 jobs and in April there were 132,496,000 jobs for a net loss of 504,000 jobs. In January the B/D adjustment was a (+)226. That means the net for February without the B/D adjustments was 730,000 lost.
In April there were 132,496,000 jobs and in May there were 132,151,000 jobs for a net loss of 345,000 jobs. In January the B/D adjustment was a (+)220. That means the net for February without the B/D adjustments was 565,000 lost.
So without the B/D model adjustments we see the following total job losses for February - May
-815,000
-766,000
-730,000
-565,000
Now, in saying the number series is getting better I am not saying "isn't it great that all those people lost those jobs! Party time! Let's get a keg!" What I am saying is the number series shows improvement. You can't turn a battleship around in a second. I would love to say we are going to wake up tomorrow and GDP growth is going to be at 3% and unemployment will be at 5.5%. It's not going to happen that way. We won't see numbers like that for at last a year and a half (and probably longer). But you have to start somewhere. And the numbers indicate that we've started on the path.
