The MSM is gushing about the fantastic job numbers. We added 292,000 jobs in December according to the always accurate BLS. A critical thinking person might wonder how we could add that many jobs and have wages dropping. A critical thinking person might also wonder how we could add 2.5 million jobs in the last year and have wages rise only by a pitiful 2.5%. A critical thinking person might also wonder how GDP can be 0.5% if the jobs market is booming. A critical thinking person might also wonder how retailers could be reporting dreadful holiday sales and more importantly plunging profits if the unemployment rate is only a measly 5%. Luckily, there are no critical thinking people inhabiting the MSM. Just propagandists and mouthpieces for the vested interests.
Zero Hedge provides an excellent overview of why the “strong jobs market” meme is complete and utter bullshit. Shit jobs paying shit wages, with millions having to work two jobs, and the labor participation rate still at 1978 levels, does not make a strong jobs market.
Here are a couple other tidbits from perusing the BLS data:
- In January 2015 the labor participation rate was 62.9%. After this supposed jobs boom, it is at 62.6%. This is at a 40 year low. Does that happen if jobs are plentiful?
- Since January 2015 the BLS says we’ve added 1.8 million jobs. Over this same time frame another 1.4 million working age people have supposedly left the workforce because they evidently don’t need a job to pay their bills.
- So lets get down to some facts. There are 252 million working age Americans in the country today. Only 150 million of them are employed. That means 102 million totally capable human beings are not working for some reason. The taxes paid by the 150 million pay for the non-productivity of the 102 million.
- It gets better. Did you know the BLS considers you full-time employed even if you don’t work their defined level of 35 hours? My entire life, 40 hours was considered full-time. My work week has always pushed 50 hours.
- Of the 150 million employed Americans, only 110 million of them work 35 hours or more. So now we have 110 million employed Americans supporting 102 million non-working drones and 40 million more who are working part-time.
- Now for the cherry on top. Since September, the BLS and the MSM have been crowing about the tremendous job growth. The country has added 1 million jobs. It seems 387,000 of those jobs were people who were so desperate they needed to take a second job. There are now 7.7 million Americans with multiple jobs – the highest in history. Another 187,000 jobs added since September were self-employed. That’s right – Ebay entrepreneurs, Amway distributors, and lawn cutters have saved the nation. So 60% of all the jobs added were essentially desperate people trying to survive.
- Since August the country has added 900,000 jobs. A little research reveals 471,000 of these jobs were part-time.
It’s amazing how a little critical thinking and research can reveal why the reported jobs numbers are a farce. Obamacare is bankrupting families and small businesses across the land. The only jobs available are shit, low paying, service jobs. What happens when the thousands of retail stores close in the next year, booting even the low paid retail clerks out into the street?
This is Obama’s recovery – real household income at 1989 levels. The Hillary propaganda machine and the liberal MSM will flog the recovery story to death, but it is complete and utter bullshit. I know it. You know it. And the stock market knows it too.
If this fake data point after 1,200 points of losses can’t generate a bounce, the shit really is about to hit the fan.
Why No Wage Growth: Multiple Jobholders Surge To Highest Since August 2008
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/08/2016 09:23 -0500
As we noted earlier, while the headline payrolls print blew away consensus estimate, printing above the highest expectations, there was a rather unpleasant number in the data: nominal average hourly wages actually dipped by 1 cent to $25.24.
What caused this? There are three reasons.
First: the continued surge of minimum wage jobs, as seen in the chart below, which shows that in December another 36,900 minimum wage waiters and bartenders were added to the labor force, bringing the total to a new record high of 11.3 million.
Putting this in context, here is a chart showing the relative addition of waiter, bartender jobs in 2015 vs high-paying manufacturing jobs. No comment necessary.
And longer-term chart: since December 2007.
Second: a troubling finding from the report was the continued surge in temp-help workers. In fact, as the BLS admitted, while employment in professional and business services increased by 73,000 in December, temporary help services accounting for nearly half, or 34,000, of the gain. As the chart below shows, jumping the 34K jump in December brought the number of temp-worker to a new all time high.
Third: the most troubling aspect of today’s jobs report, and perhaps the clearest explanation why there was no wage growth in December, is that the number of multiple job holders soared by 324,000 bringing the total to 7.738 million. This was the highest since August 2008, which as a reminder is the month before the great financial crisis started.
And, as Lakshman Achuthan shows, “people need multiple jobs to make ends meet”
So yes: jobs grew, and yet the BLS itself admits that of the 290,000 job additions, more than all came from 1 worker who had to work 2 or more jobs.
End result: average hourly wages declined from $25.25 to $25.24.
I bet a lot of the Temporary Workers are Brown Shirts for Democrats.
One big lie from the .5 HNIC and the MSM that likes to suck his cock.
When this charade collapses, it is all going to end very badly. I predict a huge Tsunami pain / suffering / economic strife.
Thanks be to God that I had the smarts to unplug from cable.
Imagine the dissonance the MSM creates. Liars all.
Who can predict what and when this Tsunami will manifest?
But it is inevitable. We had better have a way to protect ourselves
from the miserable hoard.
The majority of new jobs are going to foreigners -immigrants- for the last several years.
That would be one reason wages are stagnant at best, I’m sure there are other reasons along with it as well.
My boss has suppressed most of my research, stolen credit for all successes, and pushed off all failures onto myself. It took me almost 4 months to prove just how fucked up he is, and required me to end around and go straight to the CEO, bypassing all other people.
So now I have my old boss off my back, but have to prove myself all over again, like the last 4 years didn’t happen. Essentially, I’ve spent the last 4 years killing myself for the company, I have performed 99% of all science, both lab-side and ideation, as well as designing a dozen new products, 4 of which are on the market and successful/profitable.
I’ve tried to get out, believe me I have. Everyone is paying the same shitty wage though, the game is fixed. Thanks to America’s truly abysmal jobs situation, I’m stuck. I’m making the best of the situation, but like everyone else, I’m miserable.
People don’t get it.
The left wants the corporations run by the government, and the right wants the government to be run by the corporations.
“Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” – The Declaration of Independence
The markets have been stale for the last year, and started the beginning of the inexorable contraction in August, though the effects won’t be officially recognized until later this year.
In will swoop Bernie Sanders and his running mate, Elizabeth Warren, giving the under-class what they want (more free stuff) and completely destroying the individual while they are at it.
Corporations will shed jobs like water off a ducks back as everyone with an iota of common sense will dump their companies and abscond with the cash, because it will quickly become more expensive than its worth to bother owning something that generates cash flow.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world will capitalize on America’s distraction to try and seize some more power/territory for themselves.
And all because people are too fucking lazy to govern themselves.
You’re preachin’ to the choir, Admin. We already know the game…fire 1 FT employee, hire 3 PT’ers to cover, and my GOD just LOOK at the employment growth!
No question ObamaCare™ has forced employers to turn full time jobs into part time. However, one of the sectors always showing job growth is usually one of the last to start shedding labor when recessions hit – hospitality. People tend to wait to the bitter end before they cut back on eating out.
The big problem here is that it’s a very crowded sector, especially in the niche which I call theme park food. You know – where the decor and theme distract you from the fact that the restaurant is a reheat operation, and the food is exactly the same as everyone else’s. Going to see a lot of fails in this sector, I suspect. Big layoffs will then follow.
Dont worry. The tRump will fix this by having a wall built, by his mexican workers, and have Mejico, broke ass country, pay for it!
Bwahaha. Pipe dreams.
by Karl Denninger
NFP: +292k Claimed
Santa brought a nice fat employment report last month, with +292,000 reported by the Bureau of Lies and Scams.
Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 292,000 in December, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 5.0 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment gains occurred in several industries, led by professional and business services, construction, health care, and food services and drinking places. Mining employment continued to decline.
Ooook. So we have a flat graph for the last three months on the “headline” unemployment rate.
What’s the internal data say?
WTactualF is that? Note the blue line. It says that on the household survey, unadjusted (that is, as actually counted) we lost 63,000 jobs last month. Now it also says that on the year we’re +2.513 million over the last year buuuuut net-net of new people in the labor force the figure is -396,000 on an annualized basis.
So first off these so-called “gains” were all jobs that the Bureau of Lies and Scams imagined were created, not that which they counted by actually talking to real people and asking them questions. On that basis there were no gains at all; there was in fact a (small and statistically insignificant) loss.
Second, the employment/population ratio declined this month by one tick to 59.4%. Now granted, this is up from last year in the same month, but it is also down materially from June when it was 59.7%. As you know if you’ve been reading this column for any length of time this is the number that matters when it comes to macro-economic stability; it is, bluntly, the difference between a taker and a maker when it comes to both society and the government.
Among population sub-groups men 20 and over held steady this last month. Women 20 and over lost ground, 0.4% in the employment/population ratio, to be exact, which young people 16-19 gained a lot, from 33.6 -> 35.2. The latter is not that unusual during the holiday season, but the former bears watching.
Interestingly enough there was a trend break in the educational situation. Those with a degree held steady, while those with less all lost ground. Gee, are the McJobs going to college graduates now? Hmmmm.
The internals also show a disturbing trend among unincorporated self-employed workers — that job base contracted by a massive 306,000 in the last month. Many apparently converted to some form of corporate organization, which is good — otherwise it would be time to really have a spaz, but even with that conversion the monthly loss among self-employed individuals was approximately 1.3%. On an annual basis the loss disappears; if this is seasonal then it’s meaningless, but these figures need to be watched into the new year.
Incidentally, for those who wish to blame low oil prices I will note that over the last 12 months the total number of job losses claimed in that area is about 17,000 — a drop in the bucket, if you will. Pull my finger on that claim folks; if there are massive layoffs coming in that sector (and I believe there are) they certainly haven’t happened yet.
Another Fabricated Jobs Report
Paul Craig Roberts
According to Friday’s (January 8) payroll jobs numbers, almost 300,000 new jobs were created in December. Additionally, the previous two months were revised upward by 50,000 jobs. Apparently, the equity market did not believe the report, with the averages moving down today.
As I have pointed out almost monthly for what I think could be approaching two decades, the alleged job growth always takes place in nontradable domestic services, that is, in areas that do not produce exports and have no competition from imports. This is the job profile of a Third World country.
Twelve years ago I predicted at a major Washington, D.C., conference that was nationally televised that in 20 years the United States would have a Third World economy if jobs offshoring, which benefits only corporate executives and shareholders, continued.
Jobs offshoring has continued, and judging by the payroll jobs reports from the US government, the US is already a Third World economy.
The presstitute financial media—and what they are is a bunch of whores—always reports the alleged jobs increase as if it is a great thing, testimony to the continuing strength of the American economy, and so forth. Only a handful of us look at the data and reveal its meaning. Once again I will strip away the Matrix and show you the reality.
Allegedly, the US economy has been in recovery since, if memory serves, June 2009. If so, it is an unusual recovery. Normally, the rising job opportunities associated with economic recoveries bring entrants into the labor force, but the US labor force participation rate has been declining. In December, 2015, there are 1,185,000 fewer Americans in the labor force than in December 2014; yet, the working age population is higher today than a year ago.
The reported unemployment rate does not include “discouraged workers,” that is, workers who unable to find jobs have ceased looking for work. The reported unemployment rate of 5% only counts non-discouraged workers who are still expecting to find a job. The actual unemployment rate, that is, the rate that includes Americans who have given up hope of finding employment, is 23%. Currently, there are 94,691,000 Americans of working age who are not in the labor force. In other words, the US Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is deprived of a large percentage of its labor input.
Now, we will pay attention, unlike the financial presstitute media, to the age groups who benefited, according to the BLS, from the 292,000 December new jobs. About half of the alleged new jobs—142,000—went to the 55 years old and over age group. This age group consists primarily of retirees who have found it necessary to supplement their retirement income and of those near retirement who are working in order to compensate for the lack of interest on their savings due to the Federal Reserve’s zero interest rate policy. These are part-time, lowly paid jobs without benefits.
Americans of prime working age, 25 years old to 54 year old, only received 16,000 or 5% of the new jobs.
Those aged 46 to 54 lost 165,000 jobs. In other words, middle aged people are losing their jobs before they can provide for their retirement.
There are 527,000 more Americans working multiple jobs in December 2015 than in December 2014.
Now, as we have done so often for many years, let’s look at the make believe jobs that the BLS claims. Almost all of them are in lowly paid domestic services, such as waitresses, bartenders, couriers and messengers, employment services, social services and health care (primarily ambulatory health care services).
The conclusion is that if we believe the payroll jobs report, the United States is now an economy that only creates Third World jobs in lowly paid domestic services.
And yet this non-economy on the verge of collapse is said by the idiots in Washington to be a super-power.
What a total joke!