- by New Deal democrat
HEADLINES:
- +236,000 jobs added
- U3 unemployment rate down -0.1% from 4.8% to 4.7%
- U6 underemployment rate down -0.2% from 9.4% to 9.2%
Here are the headlines on wages and the chronic heightened underemployment:
Wages and participation rates
- Not in Labor Force, but Want a Job Now: down -142,000 from 5.739 million to 5.597 million
- Part time for economic reasons: down -136,000 from 5.840 million to 5.704 million
- Employment/population ratio ages 25-54: up +0.1% from 78.2% to 78.3%
- Average Weekly Earnings for Production and Nonsupervisory Personnel: up $.04 from $21.82 to $21.86, up +2.5% 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.)
December was revised downward by -2,000, and January was revised upward by +11,000, for a net change of +9,000.
The more leading numbers in the report tell us about where the economy is likely to be a few months from now. These were mainly positive.
- the average manufacturing workweek was unchanged at 40.8 hours. This is one of the 10 components of the LEI.
- construction jobs increased by +58,000. YoY construction jobs are up +219,000.
- manufacturing jobs increased by +28,000, and after being down YoY for a year, have now turned the corner again and are up +7,000 YoY
- temporary jobs increased by +3,100.
- the number of people unemployed for 5 weeks or less increased by +98,000 from 2,468,000 to 2,566,000. The post-recession low was set over 1 year ago at 2,095,000.
Other important coincident indicators help us paint a more complete picture of the present:
- Overtime rose +0.1 from 3.2 to 3.3 hours.
- Professional and business employment (generally higher- paying jobs) increased by +37,000 and are up +597,000 YoY, an acceleration over the last year's pace.
- the index of aggregate hours worked in the economy rose by 0.2 from 106.4 to 106.6
- the index of aggregate payrolls -rose by 0.6 from 132.4 to 133.0.
Other news included:
- the alternate jobs number contained in the more volatile household survey increased by +447,000 jobs. This represents an increase of 1,485,000 jobs YoY vs. 2,,349,000 in the establishment survey.
- Government jobs rose by +8,000.
- the overall employment to population ratio for all ages 16 and up rose from 59.9% to 60.0 m/m and is up +0.2% YoY.
- The labor force participation rate rose from 62.9% to 63.0% and is up +0.1% YoY (remember, this includes droves of retiring Bsoomers).
SUMMARY
This was a very good report in almost all respects, including the end of the manufacturing jobs recession, and a slight acceleration in better-paying professional and business jobs.
The few warts included the fact that none of the broader measures of labor market slack made new lows (although they did decline), and short term unemployment - a leading indicator - has not made a new low in 15 months.
But most of all, aside from some continued slack, the big shortfall in the economy as experienced by most Americans is the seemingly unending paltry wage growth. Once again, adjusted for inflation, there has likely been no growth whatsoever in real wages YoY. Nearly 8 years into an expansion, this ought to be totally unacceptable, and should be ringing alarm bells about what might happen to wages when the next recession inevitably hits.
