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Journal pudge's Journal: Jobs 56

Journal by pudge

I was poking around jobs data tonight, mostly on the BLS web site.

Two of the most commonly reported statistics in the news are the total nonfarm employment and the unemplyment rate. The former has become a major talking point for the Democrats, as Bush took office with a 132.4m nonfarm jobs in January 2001, and there are 131.5m now, which is a net loss.

Although when I look at total civil employment, I see a different story: 143.8m in January 2001, and 147.8m now. Why is nonfarm more important than total?

All of this is seasonally adjusted too, which also doesn't make much sense to me. More questions than answers, I'm afraid.

Regardless, one point that most Democrats have conceded is that Bush did not cause the recession, as he couldn't have: it hit in March 2001. We already had a net job loss for the year by April 2001 (132.2m), and it never came back up.

The recession ended in November 2001. In November 2001, the employment was 130.9m. Again, today, it is 131.5m, which is a clear net gain since the end of the recession.

Yes, I know that somewhere between 100,000 and 150,000 people, on average, enter the labor force each month, which is somewhere between 3.5 and 5 million since November 2001. Just to keep up with that, we should have even more than the 132.4m we started with. No doubt. Job growth, while mostly steady (June and July were anemic, August was a little bit low, so we'll what the next month brings), has not been great.

But the point is that if Bush is not to blame for the recession, then it is hard to swallow the line that he is to blame for a net loss of jobs, since there's been a net gain since the end of the recession.

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  • I always cringe when I hear employment figures with relation to a Presidency, be it Republican or Democrat.

    Like too many other things, people give the President (and the rest of the Executive branch) too much credit, IMO. He can't make it rain, he can't make the crazies of the world like us, and he can't do all that much about jobs. While huge policy initiatives may nudge the economy a bit, it's still a huge beast that's going to go where it wants to go.

    Congress, with the power of the Federal purse can d

    • I always cringe when I hear employment figures with relation to a Presidency, be it Republican or Democrat.

      Me, too. I checked my Constitution, and couldn't find where either the President or the Congress, or indeed any part of our federal government, was charged with or even given the authority to create jobs. I would like to have the rights promised to me and my state by the Constitution protected instead of having my money forcibly taken to carry out an unconstitutional agenda; such confiscation, f

  • The civilian labor force number you see at 143.8M is not the total employment, but the total labor force -- it includes unemployed workers and non-active military, but, for example, doesn't include prisoners or active soldiers.

    Farm labor is hyper-seasonal and there are lots of migrant workers, so it's not counted. It's more relevant at the state level than for the country at large because you'd see job growth and then losses coinciding with growth in the next state.

    The total nonfarm employees (~131M) i

    • The civilian labor force number you see at 143.8M is not the total employment, but the total labor force -- it includes unemployed workers and non-active military, but, for example, doesn't include prisoners or active soldiers.

      OK, but civilian employment is up too, significantly and steadily.

      And the recession that began in 1990 recovered to that job level by 1993

      And with a much smaller loss in jobs. 109.8m in June 90, to a low of 108.2m in May 91. Thats's only 1.6m difference, and it took until Feb
    • The largest, and possibly the most influential, but hidden statistic that is doing any nation a disservice to her current economy is probably the counts of heads that fell off the unemployment rolls due to expiration, not job-replacement.

      When you have a glut of workers, unaccountable or not, it's cheaper for SMB to hire more people at part-time, than to maintain a full-time worker (health cost, tax regulations).

      But you're right on the money with our "Total Private Average Weekly Hours." The average wage
  • As someone has already mentioned, farm workers are highly seasonal and hard to count.

    But perhaps there is another reason that they're ignored (and remember, farm workers are some of the most important people in the country - without them we don't eat!): They're not civilized (from the original meaning, which means citified). Rural people by and large are farmers and also, interestingly enough, lean heavily Republican.

    As to the 5 year as opposed to 3 year, remember that 9-11 did occur right near the end of
    • I predict that no matter who gets elected, the economy will continue to improve.

      Yup, most likely.

      But it will improve more under Bush.

      Unfortunately we'll never know if that statement is true or not. Both Bush and Kerry are playing supply-side games with the economy - both plans take us further into debt on the gamble that it will pay off in the form of higher revenues later.

      And off topic, but under Bush will we have more affordable health care? I'm self employed - and I want to be able to buy dece

      • Both Bush and Kerry are playing supply-side games with the economy - both plans take us further into debt on the gamble that it will pay off in the form of higher revenues later.

        Supply-side is not policy I mind too much, but not when combined with higher spending NOW. Fine, cut taxes and focus on government, I love that. But don't spend money you don't have.

        That said, I am very optimistic about tax revenues over the next couple of years. Not enough for me to agree with the spending policy, though.

        An

        • Supply-side is not policy I mind too much, but not when combined with higher spending NOW.

          Exactly. Supply-side does not cause debt. Failure to restrain spending causes debt.

  • Sorry to start off off-topic, but I think the real issue here is economic policy. One can debate all the different theories forever (and people do), but I think focusing on just today's national number is like looking through a translucent window: you just don't know what you're looking at... its really a guessing game.

    Yes, I'm aware that there's only so much we can do to evaluate the state of the national economy. But, I think the things we can do are evaluate policies on a level where you can actually s
  • You had a bunch of jobs move from the private sector to the TSA, a government agency.
    Think that had anything to do with it?

    What would happen if the TSA were privatized?
    • News business startups.
      They don't get counted in the employment figures. Certain sales positions won't get listed either. I have a buddy making a killing selling windows (not the MicroSoft kind) and he's basically an independant contractor.
      • That's the thing ... the total employment has gone steadily up by a few million since January 2001. I don't know why that number is not used. I understand farm jobs are volatile, but that misses the point: the number of total employment has gone steadily up by a few million. What are all those additional jobs? If they are farm jobs, then maybe we are seeing a resurgency in farms, which is certainly worth noting. If they are self-employed people, then that is certainly worth noting.

  • Heh (Score:2)

    by jamie ( 78724 )

    So if we ignore the fact that there are three million more people out of work now, than there were at the end of the 2001 recession, Bush is doing a great job!

    And if we ignore the fact that Bush's policies have given us one of the slowest recoveries from a recession ever (his unwise war in Iraq, and his back-loading tax cuts in exactly the opposite fashion and for exactly the opposite people you'd want for a stimulus) then Bush is doing a great job!

    • And if we ignore the fact that Bush's policies have given us one of the slowest recoveries from a recession ever

      I'm not disagreeing with you (nor am I agreeing with you), but do you have numbers to back that up?

      • Re:Heh (Score:2)

        by jamie ( 78724 )
        Yes: http://angrybear.blogspot.com/2004/09/so-hows-tha t -recovery-doing-anyway.html [blogspot.com]

        And none of those other recoveries were accompanied by the fed. govt. snapping instantly from largest surplus ever to largest deficit ever. Normally govt. spending boosts the economy, at least temporarily, which is why the Bushies were forecasting a growth of a million jobs, two million jobs, 1.7 million jobs, whatever. This economy has been so badly mismanaged that even that didn't help.

        Think about the opportunity cost

        • Re:Heh (Score:2)

          by pudge ( 3605 ) *
          And none of those other recoveries were accompanied by the fed. govt. snapping instantly from largest surplus ever to largest deficit ever

          That's extremely misleading and you know it: the surplus estimate was based on economic conditions that no longer held true before Bush even took office.

          • Re:Heh (Score:2)

            by jamie ( 78724 )
            Wow, not just "misleading" but "extremely misleading." I guess I really tried hard to mislead you.

            Was I more misleading than this?

            "We know where [the weapons of mass destruction] are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."

            Or was it more misleading than this [whitehouse.gov]?

            "The danger is, is that al Qaeda becomes an extension of Saddam's madness and his hatred and his capacity to extend weapons of mass destruction around the world... The war on terror, you can't d

            • Re:Heh (Score:2)

              by pudge ( 3605 ) *
              Anyway, perhaps you could tell me what's "misleading" about my saying "from largest surplus ever to largest deficit ever"?

              Your implication that Bush was to blame for it.

              • Re:Heh (Score:2)

                by jamie ( 78724 )
                So when somebody doesn't actually come out and say that someone's to blame for something, but they imply that the someone is to blame, even though the someone (allegedly) didn't do it, then that is being misleading.

                I [ctsg.com] think [ctsg.com] I [ctsg.com] understand [ctsg.com].

        • Re:Heh (Score:2)

          by pudge ( 3605 ) *
          Oh, and those graphs are misleading, too. They measure from the trough ... the problem is, that the low point for this recession in terms of GDP and production was not that low! In order to recover from it didn't take much.

          • Re:Heh (Score:2)

            by jamie ( 78724 )
            Oh, this is fun. So let me try to understand. Eleven quarters after the trough of the recession, all the other recoveries of the past 25 years had seen 4%, 9%, even 10% employment growth, but the Bush recovery has seen a loss of jobs. And you say Bush's excuse is that the 2001 recession was mild?

            • Re:Heh (Score:2)

              by pudge ( 3605 ) *
              Eleven quarters after the trough of the recession, all the other recoveries of the past 25 years had seen 4%, 9%, even 10% employment growth

              Again, I was talking about GDP and productivity. And that is growth from the trough, which means that the lower you go, the more room -- and more need -- you have to come back. If you drop from 110 to 100, then go back to 110, that's the same as dropping from 120 to 100 and going back up to 120.

              As to employment, yes, the picture is much more bleak, of course. It i
        • A blog??? And an self admitted partisan "slightly left of center" one at that. Does this blog have an accredited university attached to it to give their numbers some legitimacy? No sources are cited, no methodology is explained, etc etc.

          Give me a .gov source or a trade journal publication issue volume and date. Then I will lean towards the numbers and then I will scrutinize their conclusion.

          jason
        • And none of those other recoveries were accompanied by the fed. govt. snapping instantly from largest surplus ever to largest deficit ever.

          <sigh>

          You really have to look at it in terms of GDP %. This is because as we grow larger as a country, inflation rises and the country is producing more money, you're going to have larger swings in deficits/surplusses. The 80's saw much, much worse deficts in terms of % GDP. I don't remember which years (83 maybe?) but we had a deficit that was 6% of GDP. Th

    • Re:Heh (Score:2)

      by pudge ( 3605 ) *
      So if we ignore the fact that there are three million more people out of work now, than there were at the end of the 2001 recession, Bush is doing a great job!

      I didn't say he was doing a great job, though I think he is doing a good job. I was attacking a single criticism: that Bush is to blame for a net loss of jobs.

      And if we ignore the fact that Bush's policies have given us one of the slowest recoveries from a recession ever (his unwise war in Iraq, and his back-loading tax cuts in exactly the opposi
  • Sure the number of unemployed went down, but how many people had to take a lower paying job just in order to stay employed? Seems that if a person making $50k a year gets layed off then after a while takes a $30K a year job out of desperation, is that really a win for the economy?

    I always take these employment numbers with a grain of salt. The quality of the jobs being created should be >= the quantity, IMHO.
    • Sure the number of unemployed went down, but how many people had to take a lower paying job just in order to stay employed?

      First, I don't know. I don't trust Kerry's interpretation of the numbers, and I have not seen them myself.

      Second, we know we are down about 900K jobs since January 2001. We know that 400K of those are tech jobs. We know that tech jobs pay a ton of money, and IMO, largely paid way too much money, especially in 1999-2000. So yeah, it doesn't seem unreasonable that averages wages ar
      • many people rage against the economic machine when that machine adjusts to find the cheapest solution that people will buy. these same people forget that the machine is of their invention. do they want a machine that tells them what to buy, for how much, and when?

        jason
  • This is one of the most misunderstood issues.

    Just because Bush was the sitting executive in 2000 to now, does not mean he is responsible for the elastic fluctuations of the technology sector (which started in the late 90's), or the various Enron type scandals that followed.

    Also, I simply don't understand the logic of people who say that we should not be exporting various jobs to India (or where ever). I mean, are these people capitalists, or pinko-hippy communists? Simply put there is never going to be an
    • i know why they bitch... they want the ideals of capalism but the security of socialism. they want to feel like they can do anything with their money, but the don't want other people to do anything with their money.

      jason
  • Many job reports completely ignore one of the most important sources of job creation: self-employment. Why? Because growth in self-employment is so hard to measure. Here's one way of "guesstimating" the amount of growth in self-employment in recent years: how many people do you know who, in recent years, have started their own web hosting companies or other Internet-related companies (e.g., wireless ISP, spam-filtering company, etc.)? There are no accurate figures on the number of web hosting companies in t

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