Friday, April 5, 2013

BREAKING: Unemployment down slightly in March to 7.6%, 88,000 jobs created

Fresh electrons from the Bureau of Labor Statistics: the unemployment rate was down 0.1% in March to 7.6%. 88,000 new jobs were added to non-farm payrolls; around 100,000 jobs/month are needed to keep pace with population growth. The broader U6 measure of unemployment was down 0.5% to 13.8%.

Chemical manufacturing was flat at 792,600 jobs for March.

There are 4.6 million people who have been unemployed for longer than 27 weeks; that number was unchanged.

The March unemployment rate for people with a bachelor's degree or higher? 3.8%, no change. Unemployment rate for people with less than a high school education? 11.1%, down 0.1%.

What bothers me about this report is how "meh" it is. You'd really like to see sustained job growth numbers from month to month to month. Yuck. 

10 comments:

  1. Don't they say you need like 400,000 new jobs a month just to keep up with population growth?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's somewhere around 100-125k.

      Here's how they do the math: http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2011/07/how-many-jobs-are-needed-over-next-year.html

      Delete
    2. Should be noted that, to make real dents in the unemployment rate, it needs to be 300-400k.

      Delete
    3. Right, that's where I have 400,000 number from.

      Delete
  2. 50,000 factories were closed and moved abroad from 2001. Till 2001 even larger share of factories were closed and moved abroad. When they say factories became more efficient it is not true. Actually tens of millions of jobs were lost in EU and America because of that. And if all these jobs would come back, all employment would be solved, because as we know it is more with lower skilled labor related. Manufacturing is the backbone of any economy.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Not true. Economies existed before the Industrial Revolution.

      I agree, however, that moving to an economy dominated by farm labor, domestic servants, and the warrior class probably isn't a move forward for most Western nations.

      Delete
  3. I'd like to know if unemployment is going down only because workers are just giving up trying to find a job.

    Additionally, from what I've been hearing/reading in the news the majority of jobs being created at low skill, low wage positions. Kind of seems like a contradiction to me when the story that follows is about how a) Employers can't find people with the skills necessary to perform the jobs they have available; or b) There's a shortage of people entering into STEM and other fields.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's simpler than that - once your unemployment runs out you are no longer counted as unemployed.

      Delete
  4. I think NPR's piece on people moving to disability from unemployment was very interesting in light of what's going on in the labor marks the past few years.

    http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/

    ReplyDelete
  5. http://news.yahoo.com/dropouts-discouraged-americans-leave-labor-135509170.html
    more news about labor force dropouts. Labor participation is at a real low, even for those in prime working age.

    ReplyDelete

looks like Blogger doesn't work with anonymous comments from Chrome browsers at the moment - works in Microsoft Edge, or from Chrome with a Blogger account - sorry! CJ 3/21/20