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Recession? Not According to the Jobs Numbers.

Ekosj
@Ekosj
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The just-released jobs numbers were unambiguously good. The headline number from the establishment report showed an increase of 177,000. That's good. But the household numbers were much better than that. My go-to number, full-time employment, went up by 305,000. (BLS data series LNS12500000) Part-time employment was up as well. Total employment was up by 436,000, to 163,944,000... meaning more Americans are working than ever before. (BLS data series LNS12000000)

Despite these advances, the unemployment rate didn't budge, remaining at 4.2%. Why? Because the labor force participation rate went up as well. That means people are re-entering the labor force. And the way the unemployment rate math works - other things being equal - a larger labor force gives a higher unemployment rate. Here, the larger labor force offsets the additional number of people working, leaving the unemployment rate unchanged.

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Discussion (8)

  • Ekosj@Ekosj
    Replyingtokedavis

    kedavis (View Comment):

    Nope. Can’t be. I’m told by many people that these numbers are never “cooked.”

    50+ years of data have convinced me that the headline numbers from the Establishment survey are, indeed, massaged. When a Republican President is in office, the headline number is consistently and significantly lower than the numbers from the Household Survey. This is the case today. Headline 177,000, Household Survey 436,000. It’s been that way for every President since Carter. But the numbers from the Household Survey hew closer to the economy as I experience it every day.

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