job losses – The Burning Platform

Actually, The US LOST 1,030 Million Jobs in July (Teachers’ Summer Break)

To better understand the July Jobs report, one has to understand the seasonal adjustments that the Bureau of Labor Statistics employs.

Nonfarm payroll jobs added in July on a seasonally adjusted basis were +255,000 in July. But the raw or NON seasonally adjusted numbers were -1,030,000 jobs. Or 1.03 million jobs lost.

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Notice in the above chart that you get big downward dips in the nonfarm payroll numbers in January and July. And it repeats every year. For January, this is the release of seasonal employment for the holidays. For July, this is the transformation to summertime employment, mostly for teachers. Local government education NSA fell by -1,093,000 in July. Total PRIVATE jobs added amounted to +85,000.

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The $15 Minimum Wage and the End of Teen Work

Guest Post by Jack Salmon

A new report from JP Morgan Chase & Co. finds that the summer employment rate for teenagers is nearing a record low at 34 percent. The report surveyed 15 US cities and found that despite an increase in summer positions available over a two year period, only 38 percent of teens and young adults found summer jobs.

This would be worrying by itself given the importance of work experience in entry-level career development, but it is also part of a long-term trend. Since 1995 the rate of seasonal teenage employment has declined by over a third from around 55 percent to 34 percent in 2015. The report does not attempt to examine why summer youth employment has fallen over the past two decades. If it had, it would probably find one answer in the minimum wage.

Most of the 15 cities studied in this report have minimum wage rates above the federal level, with cities such as Seattle having a rate more than double that. Recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics seen in the chart show exactly how a drastic rise in the minimum wage rate affects the rate of employment.

Seattle has experienced the largest 3 month job loss in its history last year, following the introduction of a $15 minimum wage. We can only imagine the impact such a change has had on the prospects of employment for the young and unskilled.

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The Most Surprising Thing About Today’s Jobs Report

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 11/06/2015 10:09 -0500

After several months of weak and deteriorating payrolls prints, perhaps the biggest tell today’s job number would surprise massively to the upside came yesterday from Goldman, which as we noted earlier, just yesterday hiked its forecast from 175K to 190K. And while as Brown Brothers said after the reported that it is “difficult to find the cloud in the silver lining” one clear cloud emerges when looking just a little deeper below the surface.

That cloud emerges when looking at the age breakdown of the October job gains as released by the BLS’ Household Survey. What it shows is that while total jobs soared, that was certainly not the case in the most important for wage growth purposes age group, those aged 25-54.

As the chart below shows, in October the age group that accounted for virtually all total job gains was workers aged 55 and over. They added some 378K jobs in the past month, representing virtually the entire increase in payrolls. And more troubling: workers aged 25-54 actually declined by 35,000, with males in this age group tumbling by 119,000!

Little wonder then why there is no wage growth as employers continue hiring mostly those toward the twilight of their careers: the workers who have little leverage to demand wage hikes now and in the future, something employers are well aware of.

The next chart shows the break down the cumulative job gains since December 2007 and while workers aged 55 and older have gained over 7.5 million jobs in the past 8 years, workers aged 55 and under, have lost a cumulative total of 4.6 million jobs.

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JOBS REPORTS WILL GET MUCH WORSE

You can count on John Hussman to point out that today’s horrible jobs report is guaranteed to be followed by worse job reports over the coming months. Real time purchasing managers reports lead the BLS reports by two months. As you can see in the chart below, they have plunged over the last couple months. A critical thinking individual may note that the previous two times the purchasing managers surveys were at this level were 2008 and 2001. We just happened to be in recessions, with the stock market in the midst of falling 50%. But don’t you pay attention to these nasty facts. Listen to your Wall Street broker or CNBC bimbette. It’s always the best time to buy, especially when you are about to lose your job.