Jobs Numbers Beat Expectations, Again
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Damn you Obama, your socialism is killing the economy!
Employment increased more than expected in April as private companies created jobs at the fastest pace in five years, pointing to underlying strength in the economy, even though the jobless rate rose to 9.0 percent.
Nonfarm payrolls rose 244,000 last month, the most in 11 months, the Labor Department said on Friday. The private sector accounted for all of the job gains last month, with payrolls rising 268,000, the largest rise since February 2006.
The gain in overall payrolls, above economist expectations for a 186,000 increase, was supportive of views the economic recovery would regain speed this quarter after stumbling in the first three months of the year on high commodity prices.
Data for the previous two months was revised to show 46,000 more jobs were added.
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© 2000-2011 Oliver Willis
But unemployment rose to 9.0%. We see these semi-paradoxes on a regular basis.
In OllieWorld/Never Never Land, 244,000 jobs ADDED while 474,000 people FILED for unemployment in the same month =
GoodGreat news!Obot Math: Negative 230,000 people working in April is OUTSTANDING.
No wonder we have Geithner, Bernancke and the other international Financial Criminals currently overseeing the money.
Sad news for the GOP: The unemployment number will continue to go up and that’s a good thing. The decline in the unemployment rate has been due mainly to people leaving the workforce for various reasons such as flat out giving up looking.
The good news is that the job growth keeps pouring in every month and people are starting to return to looking for work. As they do they count as in the workforce once again and the unemployment rate increases. Eventually an actual decline in the rate due to job growth will start.
Don’t look for the right to understand this. They’ll always spin the latest good numbers as proof the country is headed over the cliff and into the ravine their policies have dug for us over the last few decades.
We’ve got a net increase of over 2 million jobs in the last 12 months. Not too shabby. Barring a major shift Obama and Biden will be able to tout positive job growth under this administration while they are in the 2012 debates against the GOP nominees.
Of course on the subject of touting success, I’m sure the right will tell us that like in the death of bin Laden, Obama played no role in the recovery whatsoever. I mean, how can the Obama’s policies have killed the most wanted man on the planet and helped job growth and the markets all at the same time? No man can be in two places at once. How stupid does Obama think we are? Most of the time Obama’s been at the golf course.
About that economy, a note from the real world and the Financial Times:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0c558302-7710-11e0-be6e-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1Laawu6EV
Yeh. Great news!
And aducker, your job figures are off.
12-month trend shows less than 1.7 million private sector jobs added and a little more than 400,000 public sector jobs lost. My math shows thats a net of 1.3 million jobs added since May 2010.
7 million jobs lost btwn 2007-2010. Need to recoup that number plus add a mininimum of 150,000 per month just to revert to pre-recessionary workforce.
Guaranteed, this will not happen under the Obama/Geithner/Goldman plan(s). Not even close.
Speaker Boehner: “THERE are the jobs.”
Obot Math: Negative 230,000 people working in April is OUTSTANDING.
Hahaha! Lookit the funny clown!
Bovril, you DO know, don’t you, that the “jobs added” figure is a net number? If you add in the negative side of the equation a second time, you’re cheating. Try not to look like such a cheap hack when you’re criticizing other people’s poor math skills, eh?
Also too, your cite from FT comes before the release of the latest employment figures.
and a little more than 400,000 public sector jobs lost
Wait. A conservative is complaining about a decline in the size of government? Better call in to HQ, bud, your talking point needs adjustment.
Here’s the takeaway, from the NYT linked by TPM:
Job growth was unexpectedly strong last month. The unemployment rate rose to 9 percent, from 8.8 percent, its biggest one-month increase in more than a year-and-a-half.
Which of the two numbers should you believe? The short answer is the job-growth number. The labor market appears to be improving. The rise in the unemployment rate is mostly a reflection that the rate fell by an artificially large amount over the previous several months.
It doesn’t actually mean unemployment rose last month. Instead, it reflects a kind of statistical catch-up. The old picture of the job market, as presented by the household survey, had been too optimistic. (Did anyone really believe that the job market recently improved at its most rapid two-month pace since the 1950s, as the unemployment rate suggested?) Today’s report helps correct the picture. This is simply the nature of surveys: they have noise in them.
With all this being said, the rise in the jobless rate is not irrelevant. Before today, you could have argued that the employer survey was vastly underestimating the pace of job creation — in other words, the job market was healthier than the employer survey suggested even if it wasn’t quite as healthy as the household survey suggested. After today, it’s much harder to make that case.
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/06/correcting-the-picture-on-jobs/
you DO know, don’t you, that the “jobs added” figure is a net number? If you add in the negative side of the equation a second time, you’re cheating.
As per usual Basement Quaker is wrong.
The 234000 is the net of jobs added, correct. But 474,000 newbies filed for unemployment thus the reason why the Unemployment Rate went up.
Math much. I’ll write slower next time.
To break this Labor market issue down to even simpler terms, what we want to happen is for the number of NET jobs added to outnumber those who are filing first time Unemployment Claims.
Good news would be (generally), 300,000 NET jobs added; 290,000 first-time unemployment claims.
Not even close to happening though, but keep cheering anyway.
Bovril at 1:13: The 234000 is the net of jobs added, correct.
Bovril at 11:07: Negative 230,000 people working in April
If you’re going to tell someone else they’re wrong, it’s a good idea to pick a number and stick with it. Directly contradicting yourself makes you look, um, clownish! Just my way of bein’ helpful.
Good news would be (generally), 300,000 NET jobs added; 290,000 first-time unemployment claims.
Well, generally that would be correct. But I’m sure conservatives would still complain that it was evidence of gross mismanagement if it happened under Obama’s lead.
This month’s numbers are the best we’ve seen since before the beginning of the Great Recession, back when you-know-who was still clearing brush.
what we want to happen is for the number of NET jobs added to outnumber those who are filing first time Unemployment Claims.
We also want apples to outnumber oranges. Do you even understand what “net” means?
Shorter bayvil: there weren’t any new jobs added/created.
Shorter SaveFerris: Those new jobs are due to Speaker Boehner.
You both can’t be right, guys. Think about it.
Sorry Quaker. My fault. Forgot what blog I was posting at. Thought I was at Ritholz’ or Yves’ Place for a moment.
Curious, you haven’t even addressed the 474,000 first time filers in Unemployment.
Do you even understand what that figure means? That is the approximate number of people who LOST their jobs last month?
Go back to surfin Palin’s Facebook page or making fun of Michelle Bachman. That’s More your paygrade.
BTW, any of the OllieWood crowd know why the Unemployment Rate UP if jobs picture is AWESOME!?
Curious, you haven’t even addressed the 474,000 first time filers in Unemployment.
Hunh. Coulda sworn there were goalposts right here a little while ago. I believe we were discussing “Obot math,” weren’t we?
Here’s a graph to help you understand the situation a little better (Warning you might have to put on your thinking cap so put down the DNC press releases for a moment, if reading).
http://www.answerswithoutquestions.com/posts/theunemploymentgap
BTW, any of the OllieWood crowd know why the Unemployment Rate UP if jobs picture is AWESOME!?
Yes.
Scroll up to DA’s post from an hour ago.
Here’s a graph to help you understand the situation a little better
Ducky. A chart that holds participation rate as a constant. Might as well have one that assumes the influence of magical unicorns.
There’s already a measure that accomplishes what the author of the chart sets out to do. What the author has done here is note the disappearance of 4 million job seekers and magically transformed them into 4 million missing jobs.
Thanks. That does help me understand the situation a little better.
Also: Love your big floppy shoes, dude.
Need to recoup that number plus add a mininimum of 150,000 per month just to revert to pre-recessionary workforce.
Don’t forget: Obama needs to accomplish this by cutting government spending AND cutting taxes AND letting American auto companies spin down the drain. Giddyap, unicorns!
“And aducker, your job figures are off.”
You are correct. I was tossing in 2 extra months by mistake making it 2 million in 14 months or as you’re saying: 1.7 million in 12. Still not bad if you ask me. Needs to get better though, and it will.
“7 million jobs lost btwn 2007-2010. Need to recoup that number plus add a mininimum of 150,000 per month just to revert to pre-recessionary workforce.
Guaranteed, this will not happen under the Obama/Geithner/Goldman plan(s). Not even close.”
All Obama can hope for is for positive growth under his watch and that will be noteworthy enough. He can’t be held responsible for the jobs shed while he wasn’t in office yet and I doubt that even given 8 years that we can even grow past the 8.75 million jobs that were lost before job growth started again as a trend.
It may help to actually know how these numbers were arrived at.
The unemployment number:
To calculate the unemployment rate, the government calls 60,000 households and asks people if they’re working or looking for a job.
from here.
So nothing to do with first-time unemployment.
Today’s BLS of 244K is great… until you exclude the 62K from McDonalds hirings, and 175K from the Birth Death Adjustment, and end up with…. +7K jobs.
Recovery Summer Part Deux?
Hey Randy, they posted a correction. The McD hirings came after the reported period, the 244k doesn’t include them.
Just to clarify for people who are confused by talking points:
1) the unemployment percentage rate is determined by surveying households. “Are you working? Are you looking for work?”
The unemployment rate is the percentage of people who fit in the set of “those working, or looking for a job” who are not working. If a person answers “no, I’m not looking” they’re not counted. It doesn’t matter why they’re not looking.
Maybe they’ve just given up looking for work. Maybe they have a workable situation (parent able to stay home with the kids for a while). Maybe they’ve been stranded on a desert island with a few other castaways and were tapping into an undersea telephone cable for an episode. Whatever the reason, if they’re not looking for work, they don’t count.
So an uptick in the unemployment rate is not an automatically bad thing, especially today. Today, it might be that people are seeing that hiring is increasing and this time, maybe they answered the phone and said “yes, I’m looking for work!” Or, maybe not.
2) First time filing for unemployment:
This has nothing to do with net payroll estimates. First time filing for unemployment includes temporary and contract workers who have finished a job, even if they expect to be working again within a week or so. You have to file when the job ends, in case the next job *isn’t* just a few days around the corner. It also includes lay-offs and firings that are long term, of course.
3) Jobs gained – as previously noted, this is a *net* figure – more people working this period than over the last.
4) 150,000 – this is the magic number that is a typical estimate of the number of jobs needed each month just to soak up new entrants to the work force. It’s a fuzzy number, sometimes rising or dropping, depending on who is talking. It’s not a rule, it’s just a guess. So, 244k jobs is good, but it’s much, much too slow given our circumstances. It’s only 94k people who lost their jobs due to the financial market’s fuckups getting their jobs back.
“So, 244k jobs is good, but it’s much, much too slow given our circumstances.”
That sums up my opinion on the matter.
I think the fastest way to get that number moving higher is to increase spending on infrastructure, which will not only create jobs in the short term, but improve productivity in the long term. High speed rail lines, bridges, mass transit in cities, etc.
Also, solar and wind farms to increase energy production to drive down prices.
Too bad that will never happen, because the Republicans have managed to convince enough people that you need to cut spending during a recession. Cut spending during a recession but cut taxes during war. It’s like these people live in a different reality than the rest of us.
Here Calculated Risk talks about the Birth/Death model and warns people not to subtract the value as many conservative critics are doing lately to make job numbers appear to be a scam.
funny how Randy quoted the ridiculous talking point exactly. The cons are determined to talk down this economy so that the Negro President doesn’t get any credit.
Randy, all these people plagiarized the comment you posted, right down to the ellipses!
Even if it were true, why should the McDonalds hirings be excluded?
Even if it were true, why should the McDonalds hirings be excluded?
Because….because…Obama! Now shut up! That’s why!