Second Big Miss
For April, economists predicting 998,000 jobs, and 55,000 manufacturing jobs. The BLS reported 266,000 jobs with a loss of 18,000 manufacturing jobs.
For May, economists predicted 650,000 jobs the same as the ADP predicted. The BLS reported 559,000 jobs. That’s not a bad number in isolation, but in light of stimulus, predictions, and declining work hours, it’s another miss.
BLS Jobs Statistics at a Glance
Details from the monthly BLS Employment Report.
- Nonfarm Payroll: +669,000 to 144,894,000 – Establishment Survey
- Employment: +444,000 to 151,620,000– Household Survey
- Unemployment: -496,000 to 9,316,000- Household Survey
- Baseline Unemployment Rate: -0.3 to 5.8% – Household Survey
- U-6 unemployment: -0.3 to 10.4% – Household Survey
- Civilian Non-institutional Population: +107,000 to 261,210,000
- Civilian Labor Force: -53,000 to 160,935,000 – Household Survey
- Not in Labor Force: +160,000 to 100,275,000 – Household Survey
- Participation Rate: -0.1 to 61.6% – Household Survey
BLS Error Rate
Since March 2020, BLS has published an estimate of what the unemployment rate might have been had misclassified workers been included among the unemployed. Repeating this same approach, the seasonally adjusted unemployment rate in May 2021 would have been 0.3 percentage point higher than reported. However, this represents the upper bound of our estimate of misclassification and probably overstates the size of the misclassification error.
I strongly question the accuracy of the BLS assertion that 0.3% is the high end of their error rate.
Job Revisions
- The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for March was revised up by 15,000, from +770,000 to +785,000
- The change for April was revised up by 12,000, from +266,000 to
- +278,000.
- With these revisions, employment in March and April combined is 27,000 higher than previously reported.
Part-Time Jobs
- Involuntary Part-Time Work: +28,000 to 5,271,000
- Voluntary Part-Time Work: +103,000 to 19,160,000
- Total Full-Time Work: +223,000 to 126,384,000
- Total Part-Time Work: +178,00 to 25,202,000
The above numbers never total correctly. I list them as reported.
Unemployment Rate – Seasonally Adjusted
Nonfarm Payrolls
The above chart puts a much needed perspective on the recovery.
- Jobs are up 14,733,000 from the low in April 2020.
- Jobs are still 7,629,000 from the February 2020 pre-Covid high.
Hours and Wages
Average weekly hours of all private employees was flat at 34.9 hours but that is a 0.1 hour negative revision. Average weekly hours of all private service-providing employees fell 0.1 hours to 33.8 hours. Average weekly hours of manufacturers rose 0.1 hours from a negative revision of 0.1 hours to 40.5 hours.
Average Hourly Earnings of All Nonfarm Workers rose $0.15 to $30.33.
Year-over-year, wages rose from $29.74 to $30.33. That’s a gain of 2.00%.
The month-over-month gains are seriously distorted because more higher-paid workers kept their jobs than lower-paid employees. Year-over-year numbers are now artificially low.
Average hourly earnings of Production and Supervisory Workers rose $0.14 to $25.60.
Year-over-year, wages rose from $25.01 to $25.60. That’s a gain of 2.4%.
Again, these numbers are distorted for the reasons noted above.
For a discussion of income distribution, please see What’s “Really” Behind Gross Inequalities In Income Distribution?
Birth Death Model
Starting January 2014, I dropped the Birth/Death Model charts from this report.
For those who follow the numbers, I retain this caution: Do not subtract the reported Birth-Death number from the reported headline number. That approach is statistically invalid.
BLS Covid-19 Statement on the Birth-Death Model
The widespread disruption to labor markets due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the potential impact to the birth-death model have prompted BLS to both revisit research conducted in the aftermath of the Great Recession (2008-2009) and incorporate new ideas to account for changes in the number of business openings and closings. Two areas of research have been implemented to improve the accuracy of our birth-death model in the CES estimates. These adjustments will better reflect the net effect of the contribution of business births and deaths to the estimates. These two methodological changes are the following:
1: A portion of both reported zeros and returns from zero in the current month from the sample were used in estimation to better account for the fact that business births and deaths will not offset.
2: Current sample growth rates were included in the net birth-death forecasting model to better account for the changing relationships between business openings and closings.
BLS will determine on a monthly basis if the adjusted birth-death model described here continues to be necessary. We will disclose these changes each month in the Employment Situation news release. All months in the tables of net birth-death forecasts on this page include footnotes for any month in which a regressor was used to supplement the forecasts.
The Birth-Death model is essentially garbage but we likely will not find how distorted this is until the annual revisions next year.
Alternative Measures of Unemployment
Table A-15 is where one can find a better approximation of what the unemployment rate really is.
The official unemployment rate is 5.8%. However, if you start counting all the people who want a job but gave up, all the people with part-time jobs that want a full-time job, all the people who dropped off the unemployment rolls because their unemployment benefits ran out, etc., you get a closer picture of what the unemployment rate is. That number is in the last row labeled U-6.
U-6 is much higher at 10.2%. Both numbers would be way higher still, were it not for millions dropping out of the labor force over the past few years.
Some of those dropping out of the labor force retired because they wanted to retire. The rest is disability fraud, forced retirement, discouraged workers, and kids moving back home because they cannot find a job.
Covid-19 had an enormous impact on the labor force. Most of the recent dropouts are really unemployed but are not counted as such, said Fed Chair Jerome Powell.
I agree 100%. The stated unemployment rate is bogus.
Strength is Relative
It’s important to put the jobs numbers into proper perspective.
In the household survey, if you work as little as 1 hour a week, even selling trinkets on eBay, you are considered employed.
In the household survey, if you work three part-time jobs, 12 hours each, the BLS considers you a full-time employee.
In the payroll survey, three part-time jobs count as three jobs. The BLS attempts to factor this in, but they do not weed out duplicate Social Security numbers. The potential for double-counting jobs in the payroll survey is large.
Household Survey vs. Payroll Survey
The payroll survey (sometimes called the establishment survey) is the headline jobs number, generally released the first Friday of every month. It is based on employer reporting.
The household survey is a phone survey conducted by the BLS. It measures unemployment and many other factors.
If you work one hour, you are employed. If you don’t have a job and fail to look for one, you are not considered unemployed, rather, you drop out of the labor force.
Looking for jobs on Monster does not count as “looking for a job”. You need an actual interview or send out a resume.
These distortions artificially lower the unemployment rate, artificially boost full-time employment, and artificially increase the payroll jobs report every month.
Recovery Will Take Years
The improvements are welcome but huge headwinds remain.
This recovery is a year in the making but jobs are still 7.6 million short.
Some losses are permanent due to a surge in work-at-home and online shopping (less office space and malls needed).
Word or the Day is Shortage
This ties in to my article, The Word of the Day is “Shortage”: Why Can’t Employers Find Workers?
There are millions of job openings but no takers. That may soon change as unemployment benefits expire.
On May 25, I noted 21 States Will End Emergency Unemployment Benefits Early, How Many Are Affected?
The number is up to 23.
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