Guest Post by Paul Craig Roberts
The payroll jobs report is more of the same. The Bureau of Labor Statistics claims that 223,000 new jobs were created in April. Let’s accept the claim and see where the jobs are.
Specialty trade contractors are credited with 41,000 jobs equally split between residential and nonresidential. I believe these are home and building repairs and remodeling.
The rest of the jobs, 182,000, are in domestic services.
Despite store closings and weak retail sales, 12,000 people were hired in retail trade.
Despite negative first quarter GDP growth, 62,000 people were hired in professional and business services, 67% of which are in administrative and waste services.
Health care and social assistance accounted for 55,600 jobs of which ambulatory health care services, hospitals, and social assistance accounted for 85% of the jobs.
Waitresses and bartenders account for 26,000 jobs, and government employed 10,000 new workers.
There are no jobs in manufacturing.
Mining, timber, oil and gas extraction lost jobs.
Temporary help services (16,100 jobs) offered 3.7 times more jobs than law, accounting architecture, and engineering combined (4,500 jobs).
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