Economy Added 531,000 Jobs in October, Labor Force Participation Rate Unchanged
As everything collapses for the Democrats the Labor Department gave September and August reports a significant revision. Totally not suspicious.
The economy added 531,000 jobs in October while the unemployment rate went down only by 0.2% to 4.6%. That’s the lowest unemployment rate since everything shut down with COVID.
However, the labor force participation rate remained unchanged at 61.6%.
Businesses are opening jobs, but it seems no one is picking them up. The Wall Street Journal spoke to Michael Hughes, the chief executive of cosmetics manufacturing company Elevation Labs:
Elevation Labs is a prime example of the state of the labor market right now. The cosmetics manufacturer based in Idaho Falls, Idaho, makes mainly skin-care products from factories in Idaho and Colorado. As consumers step up shopping, business is booming. Sales rose 6% last year and are up a further 37% this year, Chief Executive Michael Hughes said. The company hopes to add as many as 50 workers to its current workforce of 680. But it is struggling to find workers, even after raising wages and expanding benefits.
Since the pandemic began, the company has raised hourly wages for entry-level workers by $2 to $12.50 and plans to raise them to $15 starting Jan. 1, Mr. Hughes said. It also started offering four weeks of parental leave, which it plans to increase to 12 weeks next year. And it began allowing workers to work four-hour shifts, which gives them more flexibility in going home to care for children.
After those moves, the company has experienced a slight increase in people applying for jobs, but hiring remains tight, he said. “We as employers need to get very creative about tapping into what hours people can work, relative to daycare challenges, relative to school challenges,” Mr. Hughes said. “The message for factory managers is we can’t have this cookie-cutter solution because it suits your leadership team or production schedule.”
He said a high level of household savings might be removing the urgency for some adults to return to work. Some economists agree.
Revisions caught my eye, too.
The Labor Department revises the previous months. It’s generally a tad higher or lower. But we are in an era where Biden has awful approval numbers, the GOP took over Virginia, and the Democrats are in disarray.
September’s initial jobs report showed 194,000. The revision? 312,000!
August’s initial jobs report showed 366,000. The revision? 483,000!
Combined that’s 235,000 higher than what the Labor Department reported in its first reports. Totally not suspicious!
Hourly earnings increased by 11 cents to $30.96. The average workweek fell slightly by 0.1 hour to 34.7 hours.
Every sector increased hiring in September. Leisure and hospitality could have done better, but hey! It’s getting there. Manufacturing had a nice gain along with construction. Zero Hedge had a great breakdown:
Government jobs decreased. Local and state education employment also decreased. Yet, private education employment changed little. Gee, I wonder why. Could it be because private schools are still open? The schools remained open during the shutdown, opening more jobs for teachers and parents frustrated with public education.
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Comments
Joe’s free money to deadbeats ran out in Sept and in October more people went back to work
Maybe the revisions are legit. It could be that the Vax mandate along with school turmoil is creating more churn in the labor market with folks leaving larger employers and deciding to either work for smaller more flexible employers or using their skill set to become self employed.
Not to mention the ongoing ideological sorting as folks continue to depart their current location for one that more closely matches their own views and folks departing metro areas to suburbs, exurbs or rural areas taking advantage of the wider acceptance of remote work. All these things could conceivably create a lag in reporting.
It makes sense that old people who used to work part time to supplement their social security would now prefer to stay home.
my son wants a job. He is not willing to get a JAB for a JOB
re: September jobs numbers Gov DeSantis stated that Florida employers added about 84000 jobs that month. That is about 45% of the un-revised national number and still 25% of the more suspect revised number. All of this from a state with a little over 6% of the US population. So FL outperformed by a factor of 4.
Monday, FL, GA and AL will be asking the 11th Circuit for a stay of the jab mandate. This fact is not unrelated to FL out-performance on creating new jobs. Meanwhile, in oppressive California, unemployment remains steady at 7.5%.
I am so happy that I crossed the virtual Checkpoint Charlie between the Blue states and Free America. And did so in time to vote for DeSantis.