Nonfarm payrolls fall 36,000; jobless rate 9.7%

[Roland99]

Source: MarketWatch

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - U.S. nonfarm payrolls declined for the 25th time in the past 26 months, falling by 36,000 in February to 129.5 million, the Labor Department estimated Friday. Job losses were concentrated in construction, schools, retail and publishing. Manufacturing jobs rose by 1,000, the second increase in a row. The unemployment rate was steady at 9.7%. Severe snow storms during the survey week may have depressed the payroll count, but the Bureau of Labor Statistics said it could not quantify the impact. Total hours worked fell by 0.6%, likely due to weather-related shutdowns. The employment report was better than expected, as economists surveyed by MarketWatch were forecasting a drop of 90,000. They expected the unemployment rate to rise to 9.8%.

Read more: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/nonfarm-payrolls-fall-36000-jobless-rate-97-2010-03-05

---

Dec. revised to -109,000 from -150,000
Jan. revised to -26,000 from -20,000

[Statistical]

1. Also good to see the revisions are towards less job losses.

[harkadog]

28. The January job losses increased in the revision.

Went from 20k to 26k. Not good to see that.

[Dawgs]

2. Good news considering the weather in February.

I'd still like to see 'rising' instead of 'falling'.

[Roland99]

6. Long way to go for that. We need about +150,000 - 160,000 each month for equilibrium

Anything below that isn't enough to keep up with those entering the job force.

Esplains why the LFPR has been falling steadily for a while, too.

[AllentownJake]

19. The "weather" really?

There is already a statistical adjustment for the fact that the ground is hard in the month of February. You want to add a new one for the fact that there was snow on the road for two days and travel was difficult

:rofl:

[CatholicEdHead]

30. Some of it is probably also the US Census

many people are getting part time jobs to work on and off from now until July or so.

[FBaggins]

3. Could have been much worse

given the weather conditions over much of the country.

But it's getting close to "too late" to make a difference for November.

[dmallind]

4. According to at least two pundits a major snowstorm can cause 100-200K

job losses, especially since this one was in the most heavily populated swathe of the country. Who knows, this could have been a positive report without it. Next week will tell I guess.

[earthside]

5. The 'Great Recession' Continues

"U.S. nonfarm payrolls declined for the 25th time in the past 26 months ..."

Not "good news" ... losing jobs is losing jobs.

As far as I'm concerned, there isn't any "recovery" when 36,000 more Americans lose their jobs.

[sendero]

8. Shhh......

.... don't wake the kiddies from their stupor. Job losses are GOOD NEWS as they did not affect the "unemployment rate".

U6 is the only number that matters but they keep that number out of the press.

[dmallind]

9. So is 36000 better or worse than 715000?

Since we lost the latter figure quite recently, are things improving or getting worse from that point?

[earthside]

11. Getting worse, of course.

Perhaps things aren't getting bad as fast, but that is not "improving."

It is better to be honest than to play spin games like the politicians and the Wall Street gamblers.

[dmallind]

14. Uhh? 36000 jobs lost is a wrose direction than 715000??

So if you are speeding towards an immovable obstacle, you think it's worse to be going towards it at 3.6 mph than it is to be going at 71.5mph?

[Psephos]

35. That's a synthetic number. It's misleading to the casual reader.

For example, when people become discouraged because they've been unemployed for so long, and they stop actively looking for a job, they disappear from the official ranks of the unemployed. The economy could lose 10,000 jobs in a month, but if 100,000 people give up looking for work that same month, then the statistic shows that there are suddenly 90,000 fewer unemployed people.

That's a simple example. There are all kinds of adjustments and assumptions in the jobs figure you read. A better way to get a clearer picture of the actual situation is to look at total number of jobs.

Here's a graph:



That chart shows the US economy has shed almost 10,000,000 jobs since January '08.

Even this doesn't tell the whole story. Because the US population is expanding, the potential workforce grows by about 200,000 people every month. So if the economy grows by 200,000 jobs in a month, it's just treading water in terms of the employment rate, with no reduction in jobless misery. Well over 2,000,000 people were added to the workforce during the period shown in the graph above.

You also have to dig into the figures to see how many worked hours it takes to count as a single job for the official stats. Less than what most of us would consider a full-time job, for sure.

There are all kinds of ways to look at the figures. Usually, someone starts with a political belief, then finds a set of stats that support it. (Exactly backwards, from a scientific perspective.) It helps to go to the sources yourself. Check out the Bureau of Labor Statistics site. http://www.bls.gov


edit: added sentence

[JoePhilly]

13. I'm not surprised that folks on the right can't (won't) learn to read a trend line ...

But I am always surprised when I see folks on the left who seem to lack that ability.

If you take almost any measure of the economy and plot it from Jan 2008 to Jan 2010, and then draw a line down the graph at the end of Feb 2009 (when the stimulus passed), and then compare the two sides of the graph, it is pretty easy to see that while we still have a long way to go, the trend lines which come AFTER Fed 2009 are far better than those which precede Feb 2009.

After going into the worst recession in decades, I can't understand how anyone thinks everything should be "all better" after just one year.

And while the 9.7% unemployment number is bad. That is also the SAME as it was in July 2009.

We were in a FREE FALL ... if you look at the unemployment rate for the period I describe above, try to find ANY month in which the unemployment rate is the same as it was 6 months earlier. You can't find another month in which that is true. In fact, if you examine any month and the one that is 6 months prior, the difference is ALWAYS a significant increase.

We are trying to turn an aircraft carrier, not a jet-ski.

[harkadog]

18. You should learn to read lines.

The trend is down. Not steady. Not up. Down.

[Hosnon]

21. The trend is not down. Look at this graph:

We haven't started eating in to the massive job losses yet but we're not losing many jobs anymore. For the life of me, I don't understand why some people don't understand that things are improving.

[harkadog]

23. Please don't try and fool us with that "graph"

Some of us have taken a statistics course or two and know how easy it is to BS people with them. Your graph only shows the rate of job loss is slowing but it has not stopped. The total number of jobs continues to go down and has not gone up at all. If you tip over a carton of milk you will lose most of it quickly and then the rate slows because there is not that much left to lose. That is what your graph shows. I think any of these charts give a more accurate picture. http://flowingdata.com/2009/02/10/4-different-looks-at-job-losses-during-recessions/

[Hosnon]

24. That's exactly what I said it represents. The fact that we have just about stopped losing jobs is

a very good sign. In other words, Goal 1 has been reached. Now on to Goal 2: replacing those jobs that were lost.

And your charts are from February of 2009 - so they are hardly relevant. Here's the updated version, which shows that we have likely bottomed out:



Edit: Removed stupid attack.

[harkadog]

27. Thank you for the updated chart.

I didn't see any more recent than the ones I used. Unfortunately, your chart is using a compressed scale on the left hand side. Increase it and there is no bottoming out. Regardless, bottoming out is not going up, it is just nothing left to lose.

[Hosnon]

29. Sure thing.

I edited out the childish attack...sorry about that.

The scale on the left is not compressed; it is a ratio so as to account for population change.

[paulflorez]

32. How is the graph compressed?

1 ... 3 ... 5 ... 7 ... 9 months, etc, all pretty equally spaced. How is it compressed?

[harkadog]

33. Left hand side. Not the bottom.

Double the spacing and you will see something quite different. Statistics depends on the point of view of the camera.

[paulflorez]

37. Why would you double the spacing???

because you should compare job losses now to job losses during the Great Depression by total job losses? What about the fact that we have a larger population now than we had then??? It's like saying a fat person exercised more because they dropped more pounds than a skinny person within the same period of time.

Which is worse, losing 2 million jobs out of a workforce of 4 million jobs or losing 10 million jobs out of a workforce of 100 million jobs?

Now which one would look worse when graphed by total jobs lost?

[harkadog]

49. The chart would give aq more accurate look at the trends

For example if you halved the spacing it would almost look like we had had no losses.

[JoePhilly]

25. That "graph" is the same %$#@$ING graph that is used every year.

No one suggests that losing jobs is GREAT ... but you don't suddenly just STOP losing them when you've been losing them at a pace of 400,000 ... 500,000 ... 600,000 ... 700,000 each month.

The first step is to REVERSE THE TREND. Get the trend to change directions and then, hopefully, we cross the line into POSITIVE territory.

Do you know that Nov 2009 was the first month in over 2 years in which we added jobs?

btw ... I've taken many STATS classes ... and your MILK analogy suggests you could not come up with some thing more relevant. There are still MILLIONS of jobs that could be lost MILLIONS. So we are not suffering from a lack of jobs to be "spilt".

[harkadog]

26. No there isn't millions of more jobs to be lost.

Even in the Great Depression there was a floor to the number of jobs that could be lost and still have a civilized society. We have lost most of the jobs that mark a healthy economy. We are at the level which is stagnant and for many people one paycheck from a crisis. So far there is absolutely no evidence this administration knows how to get the economy stimulated to the point of creating jobs. There have been plenty of government jobs created but we all can't work for the government.

[paulflorez]

31. So you're saying we won't lose any more jobs...

and that we're now simply facing 0 job gain?

BTW, government payrolls actually decreased by about 18,000, so it's not government jobs that are being created right now. Most of the jobs being created are in the service and professional sectors. White collar companies are hiring again (mine is) as well as service companies.

[harkadog]

34. Census forms are going to be mailed out this month.

You are going to see a huge increase in government jobs over the next three months. Only temporary of course.

[paulflorez]

36. Good thing those government employees don't actually spend any of their "temporary" earnings

otherwise that might actually create more jobs!

Anyways, you should have said there WILL be plenty of government jobs created, not there "have been" plenty of government jobs created, since clearly governments have been laying off people.

[JoePhilly]

48. I love the "a government job isn't a real job meme".

I have a friend who works for the DOE tracking loose nukes across the globe, for like 10 years ... I need to call him and tell him he doesn't have a real job.

[harkadog]

51. Does he work for five weeks and then is laidoff?

At $10 a hour? Those are the census jobs. And no they are not 'real' jobs.

[JoePhilly]

53. Most would call that a TEMPORAY Job ... don't you think??

In fact, there are entire companies that do nothing BUT find TEMPORARY workers for TEMPORARY jobs.

AND THEN ... there are some folks who LIKE to do TEMP work. They take a temp job, make some money, then take some time off and do something else.

This model is not uncommon for free-lance writers. They use the TEMP job as a way to research, to develop characters, and at times to make extra money when their writing isn't generating much money.

Funny how this model seems to bug you.

[harkadog]

54. Funny how this "model" as you call it was condemned on this site

in the Bush years. In fact you sound like one of his economic advisers. No, most sane people would not call short term work for $10 hour with no benefits a REAL job. It is pathetic some so-called "progressives" are now touting this as an ideal. Next you will be telling us people like to be unemployed. Gives them time to relax and think, right?

[JoePhilly]

55. Are you brain dead ... exactly where did I claim this as the IDEAL???

When the economy is bad, as it is now ... ANY job that helps pay the bills is REAL.

BTW ... did you know that one indicator of future job growth (or the next quarter or 2) is an increase in companies seeking temporary workers. They hire temporary workers as a BRIDGE to full-time workers.

For some, a temporary job is like an extended interview. You do well, you get offered a full time position.

I know it is very important for some to lament any piece of news and see it in the worst possible light. The fact that you needed to wrongly claim that I am "touting" temporary work as "ideal" makes that pretty obvious.

[harkadog]

56. Your quote, not mine

"there are some folks who LIKE to do TEMP work. They take a temp job, make some money, then take some time off and do something else." Sounds like an ideal for them, right? Please get a job with the spinner section of the department of labor's employment numbers division. They can use you.

[JoePhilly]

57. Wow ... even more reaching ...

My recognizing the FACT (and it is a FACT), that SOME people actually like temp work, is NOT the same thing as claiming that temp work is the ideal, for all, for most, or even for many, people.

See the word "SOME" in my quote?

If I thought Temp work was the IDEAL ... I'd say that.

Your problem is that you want, no ... you NEED, to read more into my statement than is actually there.

Here, try these statements ... each is 100% true.

"I have a bachelor's degree, a master's degree, and a PhD ... and thanks in large part that education, I also have what is now, a pretty secure, and successful career, that I love. I work at a computer most of the time. I take work home many nights. And at times I need to travel. And I know many others with similar backgrounds in my field."

Now ... do you think that I think THAT is the ideal??

And here is another ...

"My best friend is a union sprinkler fitter. He loves his job. Its not as stable as mine, but he makes good money, and when he leaves work each day, he's done. He would hate to have to bring work home at night, and he would hate the travel associated with my job. He's far happier doing a physical job, not a desk job. I have many friends with a similar profile (a plumber, an electrician)".

Now ... would you like to claim that I think THAT is the ideal??

oh ... I also notice you ignored my point about the fact that increases in TEMP hiring often precede growth in full-time jobs.

[harkadog]

58. I did ignore your point about the Temp hiring

because I don't think it's true. Yes I know in previous downturns temp hiring has preceded permanent hiring. But that was in a manufacturing economy. We have shifted in recent years to a service/information economy which can better adapt to temp hiring than industry can. During wartime generals often fight the last war. Economists are the same. They make predictions from the last recession.

[JoePhilly]

59. Ahhhh ... well ... as a person who makes hiring decisions in a corporation ...

I can tell you that you need NOT be in manufacturing to hire temps to BRIDGE to full time hires. My company is NOT in manufacturing, it is in info tech, big time.

We also hire INTERNS for the same reason. Its an extended interview.

As we see improvements in the economy, we hire some temps. If the demand holds up, we convert some to full time.

This is not a MANUFACTURING phenominon, it is a BUSINESS phenomenon.

At the small business level it often looks like this ... let's take a landscape company ... they will hire some temps, off the books, cash only ... if the business situation holds, they convert some of them to full time.

Your claim that this is a "manufacturing" based reality is total BS. It takes many more forms.

And your last war analogy is hilarious. Economics is the study of long term trends, not just a knee jerk based on some "war" as you suggest.

And ... while some economists will point to some singular event to back them ... it is the longer term trends which really matter.

[harkadog]

60. We will see who is right.

I have been hearing from administration economists for over a year now that jobs are a "lagging" indicator. Of course it is faithfully posted each month on DU after the jobs report. Yes, very lagging. Just around the corner.

[JoePhilly]

61. Thus my position on watching trends ...

Which started this discussion.

This time last year ... my company was laying off almost indiscriminately. All hiring was frozen. All internal transfers, frozen.

In the fall we hired some temps. And as of last week, we opened 5 new EXTERNAL hire slots for full time. Three of those are likely to be the temps we hired.

The claim that jobs are a lagging indicator is not new. It was not invented by Obama or his administration. That view is based on an assessment of many recessions.

Who knows if we recover all the jobs lost ... but ... this news is not BAD NEWS ... it does not indicate a coming depression.

[JoePhilly]

62. Yes we will ... and ... here is a story on this topic from this morning ....

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/employment/2010-03-08-tempjobs08_ST_N.htm

[harkadog]

50. The federal government has been steadily hiring

No layoffs there. http://www2.census.gov/govs/apes/08fedfun.pdf I have seen no evidence government jobs as a whole have gone down.

[tonysam]

22. Job losses are a problem, but so is job CREATION

Until there are enough jobs out there to employ the 15 million unemployed, there is NO "recovery."

Anything else is a sham.

[boppers]

40. Who is defining "Recession"?

Is there some form of "Recession" defined by payrolls?

[TheWatcher]

42. No "Recession" is defined by the Propagandists who told you it was over.

Back to sleep now, son. Everything is fine.

Hey, did you hear about Kate Gosselin's new DWTS Look?

It's teh awsum!

http://omg.yahoo.com/blogs/a-line/kate-gosselin-goes-hollywood/393?nc

Let's stay focused on the important issues!

[boppers]

44. Who should define pi?

After all, since we're defining things with propaganda, who gets to define pi?

[TheWatcher]

45. You Do! Well this week anyway.

I'll do it next week.

Only I like Cherry pi, so I might be a little limited in my definition.

[rfranklin]

7. It is ridiculous to swoon over two tenths of a percent...

We need to stop trying to resurrect the last bubble and take a radically new approach to our economy. There are fewer and fewer decent paying jobs and corporation are working diligently at shipping the remaining few overseas. (India has actually increased the number of outsourced jobs during the recession.)

[DCBob]

10. Its rediculous to expect jobs to recover so quickly from a near depression..

Furthermore I don't think the administration is trying to resurrect the "last bubble". That would also be ridiculous since any idiot should know that is unsustainable.

[rfranklin]

12. Then why have they spent so much on propping up Goldman Sachs...

and and CITI and AIG and so many other criminal conspiracies? You can't cure a boil by putting a bandaid on it.

[DCBob]

15. The initial focus was to stop an economic and financial collapse...

At that time, if Goldman and other major corps were let to fold we would have sunk into a depression greater than the "Great" one.

[rfranklin]

16. We still will because nothing has changed...

That is why corporations and banks are hoarding cash. They know that this is a fool's game.

[DCBob]

17. Perhaps... but less likely than if we let those big corps fail last year.

IMO.

[girl gone mad]

39. Oh, nonsense.

No one is buying that line anymore.

[TheWatcher]

41. He is.

And the scary thing is, I think the poor thing actually BELIEVES it. :think:

[DCBob]

43. Its only nonsense to those blinded by extreme politics...

on both the right and the left.

[TheWatcher]

46. Reality is only extreme to those blinded by the Propaganda that obscures it.

Shine on You Crazy Diamond. :crazy:

[DCBob]

47. Reality.. huh??

Thats funny coming from someone deep in political fantasyland.

[TheWatcher]

52. Yes, I know, ANYONE who deviates from your view of things is insane, a kook, and living in

"A Fantasyland"

Your post is merely projection.

Mock and insult all you want, because it means nothing.

It's really all you can do, because you don't dare stray outside that safe cocoon of carefully managed perception of The Bill Of Goods you have been sold, or allow yourself to see anything differently.

[AllentownJake]

20. They have bailed out the creditors and are continuing to do so

Through Fed policy and tax breaks....and now Freddie and Fannie

What do you think happens when you have a deflationary debt crisis and you hand the creditors money and ask them to loan more money out to people who are already over leveraged?

[paulflorez]

38. But... but... but... the U3 means nothing, it's the U6 that matters!

except that the U6 has also started dropping!!!
http://portalseven.com/employment/unemployment_rate_u6.jsp

Slight uptick in Feb. but at the very least a bottoming out and more likely the beginning of a downward trend.