Friday’s Surprisingly Strong Jobs Numbers Aren’t Real

According to the household survey, where the BLS asks how many are working in a household, 170,000 new jobs were added in February of this year — despite the addition of an astounding 446,000 part-time jobs. What this means is that some 276,000 full-time jobs were lost in February.

A Gallup survey released the day before the Labor Department’s report noted:

Although fewer people are unemployed now than a year ago, they are not migrating to full-time jobs for an employer. In fact, fewer Americans are working full-time for an employer than were doing so a year ago, and more Americans are working part time.

This may be an effect of the ObamaCare rule that employees working 30 hours a week or more must be covered with health insurance, and as a result of that more and more employers are cutting hours and hiring more part-time people. And as hours are cut, more and more people are seeking a second job to make up the difference. That would be another of those “unintended consequences” of government interference in the marketplace.

An editorial in the New York Times successfully saw past the rosy surface numbers reported on Friday as well. It looked around at where job growth might come from. Housing? Some growth there, from a percentage basis. But when one is at the bottom, everything looks up from there. Car sales? Not so much. Rising wages? Not much help there either.

The Times also noted that the labor force is shrinking, so that whatever numbers the BLS reports aren't real:

Most of the decline [in unemployment] reflects a shrinking labor force rather than new hiring. In fact, if hiring were more robust, the unemployment rate would hold steady or even rise as the estimated four million Americans who are not working or looking for work rejoined the ranks of job seekers, where they would be counted in the official unemployment rate.

Furthermore, those who have been out of work for six months or more actually increased last month. If the economy were healthy, surely that number would be declining.



Friday’s Surprisingly Strong Jobs Numbers Aren’t Real