Friday, June 6, 2014

May jobs notes (updated)

It was a pretty good U.S. jobs report that came out today. 217,000 were added in May, with the unemployment rate staying at 6.3%. There were also very small downward revisions of 6,000 total for the other months, so it ended up a bit better than I expected. Most noteworthy is that the country has finally, gained back all of the 8.7 million jobs lost since the previous high mark of U.S. employment, which was back in January 2008. It also means we (hopefully) can retire this infamous chart from the Calculated Risk blog.



By the way, notice that the job recoveries keep stretching longer and flatter as time goes on, especially in our last 3 recessions (1990, 2001, and 2007)? Gee, you think "free trade", deunionization, and lower taxes on capital gains might have a little to do with this?

Calculated Risk also has a lot of other job-related stats for the last decade on its site today, so give it a look if you get a chance. One interesting item to note is that 2014 is on pace to gain the most jobs out of any one year since 1999.

Job growth, 2007-2014
2007 +1.140 million
2008 -3.576 million
2009 -5.087 million
2010 +1.058 million
2011 +2.083 million
2012 +2.236 million
2013 +2.331 million
2014 +2.563 million (12-month pace)

Guess the start of Obamacare in 2014 really killed job growth, didn't it? :P

The May growth also means Wisconsin needs to add 4,600 more jobs for May, or else the Walker jobs gap will grow even higher than the 54,000+ private sector gap that we have today. It's been a long road back for U.S. jobs, and austerity crap like we've seen in Wisconsin has certainly made the slog a lot longer and harder than it needed to be.
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2 comments:

  1. AnonymousJune 7, 2014 at 3:32 PM

    I am just curious do these declining unemployment numbers count those that are no longer eligible for unemployment pay because congress will not allow them emergency unemployment during this job shortage crisis? These folks are no longer reported under unemployment however they are still unemployed and just living in extreme poverty hoping and praying for some relief. Also any chance someone is looking at the jobs that are just posted by companies because they are open but not really being recruited for??? There are jobs listed in the database that have been out there for over a year and many from other states as well. I think our metrics are as messed up and the "job creations" that Scott Walked supposedly created - lol (what jobs????)

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  2. Jake formerly of the LPJune 7, 2014 at 5:03 PM

    Tammy- you'll see the drop off in unemployment CLAIMS, but you won't necessarily see it in a lower unemployment RATE unless those people stopped looking for work.

    For the second part, you'd see it show up in a higher unemployment rate, and it would also put away the claim of Walker and co of. "There are plenty of people hiring, look at our DWD site."

    Good questions, thanks for reading

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