The unemployment rate has skyrocketed to 14.7%. That is a 10.3 percentage point jump in a month and a record since the government has been keeping labor statistics, 1948. While the jump is directly attributable to the Coronavirus, the decline in jobs is across the board. Worse, the damage from Covad-19 is starting to be permanent. It's so bad the graphs cannot adequately display the unemployment horror due to the scale.
The March unemployment report is the first major visual onlsaught of a global pandemic consequences. From here it's only going to get worse as these results are from last month. The unemployment rate jumped from 3.5% to 4.4% over one month. That hasn't happened since 1975. Labor participation rate also plunged. If gets even worse.
The April unemployment report on the surface looks really good because the unemployment rate is the lowest it has been since May 2007. Yet the cause of the low rate for the month is a mixed bag. Labor participation rates also remain low. On the other hand, an alternative measure of the unemployment rate, U-6, is the lowest it has been since November 2007.
The March unemployment report on the surface looked bad due too less than one hundred thousand jobs gained. But that is just one number and also not part of the report which calculates the unemployment rate and other statistics. The unemployment rate actually dropped -0.2 percentage points to 4.5%. That in itself is a decade low. The better news is the monthly drop was due to less people being unemployed and almost half a million more were working.
February's unemployment report is just another no change type of thing. The unemployment rate is 4.7%, a -0.1 percentage point change from last month. Those unemployed declined slightly as did those no longer in the labor force. The labor participation rate finally hit 63.0% which is still very low The biggest movement was those employed increased by 447 thousand. Folks, there just isn't much to write home about again.
January is the month when annual adjustments are added to the unemployment report. These adjustments are just tacked onto the month of January, hence one cannot compare the past month without removing these figures. Yet, with or without the annual adjustments, this year's end result isn't much of a shift. The January unemployment rate is 4.8%. Those employed had little change as did those unemployed.
ADP's proprietary private payrolls jobs report gives a monthly gain of 147,000 private sector jobs for October 2016. The reason was a loss of 15,000 construction jobs as well as manufacturing and education. September's ADP report was revised upward significantly, from 154,000 to 202,000. Overall, it is possible this report indicates the pace of job growth is slowing, rarely a good thing.
The BLS August 2016 JOLTS report shows once again job openings exceeding the number of hires. While the number of openings declined for the month, the number of hires stayed below it. The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey history clearly has hires exceeding openings as a trend since February 2015. For August, job openings were 5.4 million while hires were 5.2 million.
ADP's proprietary private payrolls jobs report gives a monthly gain of 179,000 private sector jobs for July 2016. This is less than the 12 month ADP private sector average and about the same as June. All of the job gains were in the service sectors whereas the goods producing jobs were lost. The largest gains were in professional and business services with construction jobs contracting.
The BLS April 2016 JOLTS report shows job openings once again matching their July 2015 record high. Actual hiring though slid and openings now far exceed the number of people hired. The Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey history shows a new trend as job openings have surpassed actual hiring and this has been going on since February 2015.
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