Initial Reaction

Today’s employment report shows an increase of 160,000 jobs, well under the Bloomberg Econoday consensus estimate of 200,000 jobs and below the entire consensus range of 175,000 to 245,000.

Revisions took April from 215,000 down to 208,000.

The household survey was far weaker than the payroll survey. Employment actually declined by 316,000, with fulltime employment down 196,000.

Let’s dive into the details in the BLS Employment Situation Summary, unofficially called the Jobs Report.

BLS Jobs Statistics at a Glance

• Nonfarm Payroll: +160,000 – Establishment Survey
• Employment: -316,000 – Household Survey
• Unemployment: -46,000 – Household Survey
• Involuntary Part-Time Work: -161,000 – Household Survey
• Voluntary Part-Time Work: +41,000 – Household Survey
• Baseline Unemployment Rate: +0.0 to 5.0% – Household Survey
• U-6 unemployment: -0.1 to 9.7% – Household Survey
• Civilian Non-institutional Population: +201,000
• Civilian Labor Force: -362,000 – Household Survey
• Not in Labor Force: +562,000 – Household Survey
• Participation Rate: -0.2 at 62.8 – Household Survey

Employment Report

Please consider the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Current Employment Report.

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 160,000 in April, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 5.0 percent. Employment increased in professional and business services, health care, and financial activities. Job losses continued in mining.

Unemployment Rate – Seasonally Adjusted

Nonfarm Employment Change from Previous Month

Nonfarm Employment Change from Previous Month by Job Type

Hours and Wages

Average weekly hours of all private employees was flat at 34.4 hours. Average weekly hours of all private service-providing employees was flat at 33.3 hours. Average weekly hours of manufacturers was flat at 40.7 hours. for all three groups, average weekly hours is the same as a year ago.

Average hourly earnings of private workers rose $0.05 to $21.45. Average hourly earnings of private service-providing employees rose $0.04 to $21.24.

For discussion of income distribution, please see What’s “Really” Behind Gross Inequalities In Income Distribution?

Birth Death Model

Starting January 2014, I dropped the Birth/Death Model charts from this report. For those who follow the numbers, I retain this caution: Do not subtract the reported Birth-Death number from the reported headline number. That approach is statistically invalid. Should anything interesting arise in the Birth/Death numbers, I will add the charts back.

Table 15 BLS Alternate Measures of Unemployment

Table A-15 is where one can find a better approximation of what the unemployment rate really is.

Notice I said “better” approximation not to be confused with “good” approximation.

The official unemployment rate is 5.0%. However, if you start counting all the people who want a job but gave up, all the people with part-time jobs that want a full-time job, all the people who dropped off the unemployment rolls because their unemployment benefits ran out, etc., you get a closer picture of what the unemployment rate is. That number is in the last row labeled U-6.

U-6 is much higher at 9.7%. Both numbers would be way higher still, were it not for millions dropping out of the labor force over the past few years.

Some of those dropping out of the labor force retired because they wanted to retire. The rest is disability fraud, forced retirement, discouraged workers, and kids moving back home because they cannot find a job.

Strength is Relative

It’s important to put the strength of some of the jobs numbers into proper perspective.

1. In the household survey, if you work as little as 1 hour a week, even selling trinkets on EBay, you are considered employed.
2. In the household survey, if you work three part-time jobs, 12 hours each, the BLS considers you a full-time employee.
3. In the payroll survey, three part-time jobs count as three jobs. The BLS attempts to factor this in, but they do not weed out duplicate Social Security numbers. The potential for double-counting jobs in the payroll survey is large.

Household Survey vs. Payroll Survey

The payroll survey (sometimes called the establishment survey) is the headline jobs number, generally released the first Friday of every month. It is based on employer reporting.

The household survey is a phone survey conducted by the BLS. It measures unemployment and many other factors.

If you work one hour, you are employed. If you don’t have a job and fail to look for one, you are not considered unemployed, rather, you drop out of the labor force.

Looking for jobs on Monster does not count as “looking for a job”. You need an actual interview or send out a resume.

These distortions artificially lower the unemployment rate, artificially boost full-time employment, and artificially increase the payroll jobs report every month.

Final Thoughts

This report was much weaker than the headline number indicates.

+160,000 jobs vs. -316,000 employed is quite the discrepancy.

In the past, household survey weakness tended to be made up in subsequent months.

One of these times, out of the blue, we will see sustained weakness.

Mike “Mish” Shedlock

Addendum

After a conversation with the BLS the number of full-time jobs lost is 253,000 not 196,000.

For details, please see Diving Into Seasonal Adjustments: Today’s Conversation With the BLS.