Fewest working, or looking for work, since.........1978!!!

[Svnla]

Hiring slumped sharply in December, as the economy added only 74,000 jobs, according to the government. This was the weakest month for job growth since January 2011 and came as a huge surprise to economists, who were expecting an addition of 193,000 jobs.

And I thought everything were up and up, unemployment rate was down but what do we have here?

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate fell to 6.7% in December, but the drop came mainly from workers leaving the labor force.

Only 62.8% of the adult population is participating in the labor market now -- meaning they either have a job or are looking for one. That matches the lowest level since 1978.

Fed spent all the money (trillion of dollars) and what do we have?

While Congress has largely focused on reducing government spending, the Federal Reserve has been pumping trillions of dollars into the economy in an attempt to help the job market.
Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke will end his second term at the central bank later this month without reaching his goal of "full employment."

http://money.cnn.com/2014/01/10/news/economy/december-jobs-report/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

 

[Zaap]

We've achieved Carter 2.0.

 

[theeedude]

Fed money went to reblowing the housing bubble and stock market bubble. If you wanted that money to create jobs, the government should have borrowed more of it and started some big infrastructure projects, or at least helped the state and local governments from cutting spending on existing projects and laying off teachers.

 

[berzerker60]

One job report doesn't matter. It didn't matter when news was good, it doesn't matter now that news is bad. For one thing, these numbers get revised in 100% of cases, sometimes significantly, as more data comes in. Remember the accusations of Obama 'cooking the books' a year or two ago when bad numbers were revised upwards later on (as if that even made sense, when it would just mean they'd have to look even worse when they returned to reality later)?

Get back to me in 6 months when we can look at longer trends.

 

[umbrella39]

Someone has their pompons in hand...

 

[PokerGuy]

Of course, most idiots (and that includes pretty much all the general media) will look at the 6.7% unemployment and say "look, everything is going great, we'll soon be at 6%!". The fact that the number of people who are employed or looking for work is at a 40 year low level is alarming to say the least. That's not even factoring in how many of those who are employed are actually employed at the level they want to be or are just working a job to pay the bills while they look for a 'real' job.

 

[Vic]

We've achieved Carter 2.0.

Hey, I forget, how did the stock market perform while Carter was President?

 

[theeedude]

The media is clueless, especially financial media, that is cheering on the stock market.
When you look at the numbers, the market is growing primarily through earnings increases which come not from organic growth, but from squeezing the wage earners so that more money is left for profits and share buybacks. Which is all fine and dandy if it was happening in isolation, except, of course those wage earners are also the customer base of those businesses. These companies are getting fat by eating the legs that support them, and stock market is thinking times are fat buy just looking at the flabby upper body and ignoring the stubs that support it.

 

[chucky2]

...just looking at the flabby upper body and ignoring the stubs that support it.

Did you have to insult me?

 

[BUnit1701]

The media is clueless, especially financial media, that is cheering on the stock market.
When you look at the numbers, the market is growing primarily through earnings increases which come not from organic growth, but from squeezing the wage earners so that more money is left for profits and share buybacks. Which is all fine and dandy if it was happening in isolation, except, of course those wage earners are also the customer base of those businesses. These companies are getting fat by eating the legs that support them, and stock market is thinking times are fat buy just looking at the flabby upper body and ignoring the stubs that support it.

The stubs can't support it anymore, there is a giant harnes hanging from the celing called 'FEDERAL RESERVE' that is the only thing keeping the bloated carcass suspended.

 

[Bowfinger]

Of course, most idiots (and that includes pretty much all the general media) will look at the 6.7% unemployment and say "look, everything is going great, we'll soon be at 6%!". The fact that the number of people who are employed or looking for work is at a 40 year low level is alarming to say the least. That's not even factoring in how many of those who are employed are actually employed at the level they want to be or are just working a job to pay the bills while they look for a 'real' job.

I largely agree, but I will point out that when some of us tried to point these same things out during Bush's purportedly "booming" recovery, we were dismissed as partisans. It's interesting how they suddenly reversed their denial now that a (D) is at the helm.

Yes, there is a long-term employment problem in the United States, due in great part to millions of our best jobs being sent to other countries. While this has been great for the financial elite, it's been chewing away at the middle class for a good 30 years. It's also not likely to change unless we get a Congress and President who are willing to take on those financial elite. I don't see that on the horizon from either party.

I will say I question how alarming it is that the labor participation rate is dropping. We've been anticipating the boomers retiring for a couple of decades. Retiring boomers are a factor in that declining participation rate. I'd need to see more information to know whether that's the major cause, or whether the decline is substantially greater than expected.

 

[AViking]

Wow that's worse than expected.

These news outlets that keep reporting the unemployment numbers should be ashamed of themselves.

We have now gotten to the point where statistics that show low unemployment numbers basically count all high school and college students as out of the job market. So basically your first job is now when you graduate from college. Of course this is completely against our culture but whatever makes the numbers look better.

Pretty simple really though.

If you have 171,000,000 adults and 12,000,000 are unemployed you get a number of 7% unemployment. Unfortunately there are way more than 171 million adults who should be counted in the job market.

There are 100 million or so Americans not included in the labor force. Some are disabled, some are retired, and some are full time college students. However that number also includes a lot of people who simply can't get a job. High school students, part time college students, other full time college students, and of course people who have simply "given up" since they haven't been able to find a job for 3 years. They aren't getting any benefits so they are simply dropped off the unemployment statistics. Of course they most assuredly still want a job and I have a hard time believing that tens of millions of Americans are simply resigned to a life of unemployment. In other words the unemployment number is a crock of shit and we're now at 35 year lows.

 

[fskimospy]

Wow that's worse than expected.

These news outlets that keep reporting the unemployment numbers should be ashamed of themselves.

We have now gotten to the point where statistics that show low unemployment numbers basically count all high school and college students as out of the job market. So basically your first job is now when you graduate from college. Of course this is completely against our culture but whatever makes the numbers look better.

Pretty simple really though.

If you have 171,000,000 adults and 12,000,000 are unemployed you get a number of 7% unemployment. Unfortunately there are way more than 171 million adults who should be counted in the job market.

There are 100 million or so Americans not included in the labor force. Some are disabled, some are retired, and some are full time college students. However that number also includes a lot of people who simply can't get a job. High school students, part time college students, other full time college students, and of course people who have simply "given up" since they haven't been able to find a job for 3 years. They aren't getting any benefits so they are simply dropped off the unemployment statistics. Of course they most assuredly still want a job and I have a hard time believing that tens of millions of Americans are simply resigned to a life of unemployment. In other words the unemployment number is a crock of shit and we're now at 35 year lows.

You realize that there isn't an 'unemployment number', right? There are 6 primary measures of unemployment, each of which represents a different thing. U3 is the most commonly cited one as it is generally accepted to represent the job market in a way that people care about the most, but it is in no way the only one and people aren't 'simply dropped off the unemployment statistics'.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm

 

[LegendKiller]

The Fed has said that a huge portion of the participation rate has been retirement and even Mish found out that is about right.

 

[Genx87]

We had a participation bubble that popped when the stock market crashed in 01. I am pretty indifferent about it myself. We have baby boomers retiring. I'd expect it to keep widdling away for the next 20-30 years.

 

[fskimospy]

We had a participation bubble that popped when the stock market crashed in 01. I am pretty indifferent about it myself. We have baby boomers retiring. I'd expect it to keep widdling away for the next 20-30 years.

The labor force participation rate has dropped faster in recent years than we would normally expect, but yes much of it is driven by retirement. We should anticipate it continuing to get lower regardless of how the employment situation goes in future years.

 

[AViking]

You realize that there isn't an 'unemployment number', right? There are 6 primary measures of unemployment, each of which represents a different thing. U3 is the most commonly cited one as it is generally accepted to represent the job market in a way that people care about the most, but it is in no way the only one and people aren't 'simply dropped off the unemployment statistics'.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm

So is U6 the one that represents the actual number?

I care about employment numbers. If the number of employed people drops that's what matters. Yes you have baby boomers retiring but what we are seeing now is misleading statistics since they pick and choose who they feel should be in the job market. I'm fairly positive that anyone in school is not considered in the job market and that's bullshit.

 

[BUnit1701]

The labor force participation rate has dropped faster in recent years than we would normally expect, but yes much of it is driven by retirement. We should anticipate it continuing to get lower regardless of how the employment situation goes in future years.

The BLS site doesn't say, but surely retired workers are counted separately from 'discouraged' workers.

 

[fskimospy]

So is U6 the one that represents the actual number?

I care about employment numbers. If the number of employed people drops that's what matters. Yes you have baby boomers retiring but what we are seeing now is misleading statistics since they pick and choose who they feel should be in the job market. I'm fairly positive that anyone in school is not considered in the job market and that's bullshit.

There is no 'actual number', it all depends on what you mean by unemployed. U6 even counts employed people who would like to work more hours but can't for economic reasons. Are they actually unemployed? Kind of.

U6 includes marginally attached workers, which is defined in the link:

Persons marginally attached to the labor force are those who currently are neither working nor looking for work but indicate that they want and are available for a job and have looked for work sometime in the past 12 months. Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached, have given a job-market related reason for not currently looking for work.

So some students would be, others wouldn't. I think you would be well served to learn more about how we calculate unemployment before accusing the BLS of cooking the books.

 

[Zaap]

Hey, I forget, how did the stock market perform while Carter was President?

Hey I forget, was this thread about the stock market or number of people looking for work?

 

[umbrella39]

Did you have to insult me?

Do you even work you legs, bro?

 

[AViking]

So it sounds like U6 is far more accurate. If you were working full time but had your hours cut to 20 a week I'd say that puts you in the unemployed column. If you were making $70,000 but now make $15/hr that's probably a good number to throw in there too. What if you quit your job? While you look for a new job are you counted in the unemployment number? After all you get no benefits but you're still looking for a job.

 

[fskimospy]

So it sounds like U6 is far more accurate. If you were working full time but had your hours cut to 20 a week I'd say that puts you in the unemployed column. If you were making $70,000 but now make $15/hr that's probably a good number to throw in there too. What if you quit your job? While you look for a new job are you counted in the unemployment number? After all you get no benefits but you're still looking for a job.

U6 is neither more or less accurate, just different.

People who don't make as much money now as they used to would not be good to count as unemployed. The wages people take home are accounted for in different employment metrics. If you are looking for a new job you are counted in U6 (and U3, for that matter)

 

[AViking]

Yet if you are not getting unemployment how do they know you're looking for a job?

 

[nehalem256]

So it sounds like U6 is far more accurate. If you were working full time but had your hours cut to 20 a week I'd say that puts you in the unemployed column. If you were making $70,000 but now make $15/hr that's probably a good number to throw in there too. What if you quit your job? While you look for a new job are you counted in the unemployment number? After all you get no benefits but you're still looking for a job.

U6 and U3 basically tell the exact same picture about the economy. People typically start quoting the U6 when they want to be sensationalist, which is why they almost never make a comparison between the previous month/year/decade U6 rate to the current one.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm

Every single unemployment rate went down over the last year.

And I thought everything were up and up, unemployment rate was down but what do we have here?

A workforce participation rate bubble correcting?