Thursday, July 03, 2014

Jobs Jump by 288,000 in June, U.S. Unemployment Rate at 6.1%

CNN had the following headline: "For 288,000 Individuals: You're Hired! Jobs Recovery Seems to Hit its Stride!"  Fox Business: "Dow Strikes 17,000 for the First Time in History After the Unemployment Rate Fell to its Lowest Level in Nearly Six Years!"  Wow!  Wonderful news.  It is only wonderful if you simply focus on the headlines and not the "internals" of the report.

The media simply does not do its research behind these numbers provided by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS). They simply accept whatever is given to them as facts.  Speaking of facts, let's analyze these so-called wonderful employment numbers. First, if one takes the 12-month change in total employment added and subtract the 12-month change in the addition to the working-age population, your net gain in jobs added is 1,000!  Yes, our economy only created 1,000 jobs over the past 12 months.  Second, if you analyze the BLS's Birth/Death Model, which is a statistical adjustment, not actual number, used by the BLS, this measure added 743,000 so called jobs over the last 12 months.  However, the BLS counts these Birth/Death jobs as real.  Third, the BLS reports that the number of full-time jobs in June tumbled by 523,000, while part-time jobs soared by 799,000!  Fourth, the labor force participation rate remained flat at 62.8%, which is the lowest percentage since 1978.  (The labor force participation rate is the percentage of actual employment plus those looking for employment to the pool of civilian working age population.)

Now, you have the real facts behind today's employment numbers, which you will not get from the media.

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