Economy Only Added 114,000 Jobs in July, Unemployed People Looking for a Job Increased by 366,000
Unemployment rose to 4.3%, the highest since October 2021.
Not good, Bob.
The economy had a weak July, with only 114,000 jobs added as unemployed people increased by 320,000 to 7.2 million.
The average number of new monthly jobs in the past year is 215,000. Major yikes.
There’s no way around it. This is bad.
Unemployed People Who Currently Want a Job
The jobs report has many stats, but an important one is the number of unemployed people who currently want a job. The unemployment number doesn’t include them since they did not actively look for a job in the last four weeks preceding the survey.
In other words, people who give up looking for work.
July: “The number of people not in the labor force who currently want a job increased by 366,000 to 5.6 million in July, largely offsetting a decline in the previous month.”
Yikes. The unemployment rate jumped by 0.2% to 4.3% in July. Imagine what it would be like if the BLS included them in the unemployment rate.
“We are still in a good place, but until we see signs of stabilizing, of leveling out, I’m worried,” Claudia Sahm, a former Fed economist now the chief economist at New Century Advisors, told The Wall Street Journal.
Average Hourly Earnings
Another important stat is the average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls, which rose by 8 cents or 0.2% to $35.07.
The number is 3.6% higher than July 2023. However, it’s “the smallest gain since May 2021.”
Labor Force Participation Rate
The labor participation rate is important as the Boomers retire.
Well, it’s not great, either. It’s at 62.7%, a little change from June to a year ago.
The employment-population ratio also changed a little to 60%.
That stat went down 0.4% from a year ago.
Revising Down May and June Numbers
You also have to look at adjustments to previous months. Remember those numbers they bragged about in May and June?
Yeah, the BLS revised them down by a combined 29,000:
The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for May was revised down by 2,000, from +218,000 to +216,000, and the change for June was revised down by 27,000, from +206,000 to +179,000. With these revisions, employment in May and June combined is 29,000 lower than previously reported.
June went down by 27,000!!
114,000 New Jobs in July
So, 114,000 new jobs overall. The BLS found the most change in:
- Health care: +55,000
- Construction: +25,000
- Transportation and warehousing: +14,000
- Social assistance: +9,000
- Information: -20,000
These sectors saw little change: government, mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction; manufacturing; wholesale trade; retail trade; financial activities; professional and business services; leisure and hospitality; and other services.
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Comments
The BLS #s have been hot garbage for several years. Practically every monthly headline # has been revised lower once the fanfare died down. The other issue is the lack of participation in the survey data, roughly 70% of this report is an ‘estimate’. Lots of room for chicanery if one was inclined to do so to produce politically biased reports. We are reaching the point where the weakness can’t be hidden, even the Fed Reserve has begun very gently pointing out the problem in the BLS data sets and the vast gap with the household survey data.
We know that our absolutely competent and incorruptible Federal govt employees would never abuse their position to produce politically motivated outcomes or even think to put their thumb on the scale to support their own political or policy preferences. /S
Is it still Bidenomics, or is it Harrisonomics?
Demonomics.
Over on LinkedIn RADM Jim Waters was boasting about how the Navy met its recruiting goals last month.
This, along with HS graduates entering the job market, may explain the reason for his glee.
Related data points: Total employment just prior to the pandemic was 159M. It is now up to 161M. Also, more than 100% of the pitiful 4-year increase is in employment of immigrants. So the Biden-Harris administration has really delivered for American citizens; and running $2T deficits to do it. Ha!
In July 2023, the unemployed numbered (in thousands) 5,904. Last month that number was 7,163. The most important question – to me – is: Are illegal aliens of working age counted in those numbers? The answer is: They’re not really sure.
from the BLS…
Are undocumented immigrants counted in the surveys?
It is likely that both surveys include at least some undocumented immigrants. However, neither the establishment nor the household survey is designed to identify the legal status of workers. Therefore, it is not possible to determine how many are counted in either survey. The establishment survey does not collect data on the legal status of workers. The household survey does include questions which identify the foreign and native born, but it does not include questions about the legal status of the foreign born.
We have no idea how many people are in this country illegal. We have no way to identify what percentage of those people are working or are looking for work. Therefor, we have no idea what the real unemployment rate is. Anyone who says otherwise is lying.
“We don’t ask, precisely so we can’t tell.”
We have been invaded by a huge hostile foreign mass [think of the invasions of the Roman Empire] and are not only not resisting it, we have no comprehension of how many, where, or the effect of the invasion except it is expensive.
Subotai Bahadur
These numbers are all Trump’s fault. I’m not sure why but I’ll watch The View and post again after they explain it.
Imagine how bad the July numbers will be once they issue the necessary downward revision.
Everything went up, so that’s a good thing, right?
/LIV
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/yourmoney/401k/article-13702421/global-stocks-meltdown-jobs-unemployment.html
Global stock market meltdown as fears grow US economy will ‘collapse’
Stocks are purchased in dollars, which have inflated over the last few years. Helpfully, the St Louis Fed has a data series which adjusts the Dow with the CPI.
According to that series, the adjusted Dow hit its Biden Admin high in November 2021, fell, then recovered most of its losses, and stands at 96% of its 11/2021 value.
In other words, the Dow hasn’t risen at all in almost three years.
Source: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=8Qh
I’m losing lots of money in the stock market for the 3rd time in 16 years
Claw myself back up and then bam once again
This country is imploding
Is that you JR
Well we could always be distracted and entertained by watching men, sanctioned to do so, beat the crap out of women!
https://www.breitbart.com/sports/2024/08/02/taiwanese-boxer-failed-iba-gender-test-defeats-femals-opponent-olympics/
According to the household survey the number of people working increased by 67K, less than half of the “new jobs created” from the jobs report. I have thought for a very long time that the jobs report was a very unreliable indicator compared to the household survey, and I still think that.
Why should we trust anything from this regime? As always, this quote from 1984 is appropriate when discussing economic figures released by the Biden* junta:
Full-time employment:
Dec 2019: 131,675,000 (Trump admin maxima, pre-covid)
Feb 2022: 131,745,000 (covid jobs volume recovered)
June 2023: 134,787,000 (Biden admin maxima)
July 2024: 133,684,000
In other words, since June 2023, the county has **lost** 1.1 million full-time jobs.
All data from the St Louis Fed: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS12500000
That is consistent with higher numbers I reporrted earlier, which probably included part time employment. The Biden administration has created 2M new non-recovery jobs. More than that is in increases in immigrant employment. IMO this helps explain why people do not feel good about the economy. It is not easy to get a quality job.
Hard to recover from high inflation when the average wage barely goes up and the average workweek declines
My youngest son in his mid 30s lost his job and was out for several months until he got another one at slightly less pay.
Trumps fault, he’s weird
So this actually has to happen.
There are very few ways inflation ends w/out the unemployment flogging.
Good that it happens before the election. Also note they aren’t lying about the numbers as much. Interesting eh?
Stock market pulling back is another good thing.
It’ll be hard to time this right- but in the pull back I’m looking to buy leaps for Dec 2026 in the QQQ and SPY. (Nasdaq and S&P) One of my orders for the S&P executed earlier this week and I put another one in banking for another pull back.
My rationale is at the back side of this interest rates will fall, DEI is dying, and the country will get back on the right track. Don’t do the options thing unless you can afford to be wrong. If you can’t afford to be wrong- buy the Nasdaq and S&P indices now and in any pullbacks between now the election.