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Misty » 11 Mar 2011 1:42 pm » wrote:August 30th, 2016
Taking my thread back from Clem, Huey and Bilko today.

(Formerly the The Mean Girl's Club
The Home of Clem, Huey and Bilko.)

Full Employment? Even With 313,000 New Jobs, We're Not There Yet
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3/09/2018
Employment: The February gain in jobs — 313,000 — was impressive on a number of levels. But it also confirms something we've been saying for some time: We aren't anywhere near full employment.
If you're looking for good news in the latest jobs numbers, it's hard to know where to start.

First, 313,000 was 50,000 more than expected, and is the biggest monthly gain in jobs in a year and a half.

In fact, since the recession ended in June 2009, there have only been six months in which job gains beat this number — which doesn't say much for President Obama's economic performance.

Better still, these employment gains were across the board. In fact, almost a third of the increase was in goods-producing industries, which climbed at a rate more than twice as fast as the overall job market.
The only part of the economy that didn't grow was government, which can also be seen as good news. The federal workforce, in fact, dropped in February, and is now 14,000 lower than when Trump took office
At 4.1%, the overall unemployment rate is at a 17-year low, while the unemployment rates among blacks and Hispanics remain at historic lows.

But the employment numbers also show why, despite these strong gains, the economy is still far from "full employment."

The reason is simple: During the tepid economic recovery under Obama, 14.5 million people dropped out of the labor force, most of whom were able-bodied people who'd simply given up looking for work.

What the February data make clear is that the stronger economy under Trump is creating enough new jobs that it's now pulling many of these people off the sidelines and back into the labor force.

In fact, the data show that 653,000 people rejoined the labor force in February, the biggest monthly increase in more than a decade.

The number of people who aren't in the labor force but want a job now dropped by 40,000 in February, after coming down by 137,000 in January.

As a result, the employment-to-population ratio climbed to 60.4% in February. That's higher than it ever got during Obama's eight years in office. Better still, the employment-to-population ratio among those of prime working age jumped to 79.3%, its highest level in almost a decade.

And the labor force participation rate — the share of people looking or who have jobs — is now up to 63%, after having fallen steadily during Obama's years (it went from 65.7% when he took office to 62.7% when he left).

This is all good news. Even so, there are still 5.1 million people who aren't in the labor force but want a job now — a massive pool of ready-and-willing workers.

The fact that wage growth was mild in February — up just 2.6% from the year before — is further evidence that the labor market isn't at full employment.

As good as the latest jobs numbers are, too many people who should have jobs don't.
https://www.investors.com/politics/edit ... there-yet/