Jobs Added and Jobs Subtracted: The Current Jobs Economy New Math
Today we had the release of the latest jobs report for The Employment Situation -- February 2014 released by Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). There were 175,000 jobs added, which is up from last month's 113,000. So while jobs added is a + positive factor, the real issue is when you realize how many people are out of work and how many are long-term unemployed. This new increase hardly makes a dent.
Here's a report on CNN where I talk about the situation with other members of the networking group I founded Neighbors-helping-Neighbors.
During the month of February about 203,000 people who are out of work moved into the 27+ weeks unemployed and then were cut off from unemployment extended benefits, so the new jobs do not ever absorb them.
ADP the payroll service releases their own figures which are significantly higher in December and January and now in February they are well below the BLS official numbers. This makes you question how this can be and do any of these indicators reflect the real situation out there?
No matter what measurement you follow, the trends are what is important. These numbers are still too little to have impact on improving the economy, We know from other reports that the gains have been in lower salary jobs which really also is not a great help to our economy.
Based on ADP's stats, Small Business is the largest category of growth in past three months. But there was a decline each month in jobs added by Medium size business.
Economist's projections are that the cutoff of extended unemployment benefits was projected to see a loss of 240,000-250,000 jobs by local businesses who depend upon the immediate cash flow back into the economy spent on food and other personal essentials.
Cutting Off Extended Unemployment Benefits Was A Mistake, And Now The Economy's Paying For It
Non farm jobs added | Dec 2013 | Jan 2014 | Feb 2014 |
BLS numbers | +74,000 | +129,000 | +175,000 |
ADP reported jobs | +238,000 | +127,000 | +139,000 |
Small businesses (ADP) | +108,000 | +54,000 | +59,000 |
Medium businesses (ADP) | +59,000 | +48,000 | +35,000 |
Large businesses (ADP) | +71,000 | +25,000 | +44,000 |
The Huffington Report said that recent Gallup poll showed the Unemployment is the number 1 Problem for Americans..
Unemployment The Number 1 Problem For Americans, Gallup Poll Says See Article
The H-1B visa which allows the import of workers to take jobs at reduced pay that should be offered to Americas is one of the other subtraction factors. This is an issue and immigration reform will be a very controversial one. See the states impacted and the top companies doing this form of outsourcing. The top states impacted by this also happen to be the states with the largest unemployment total numbers of people. See Chart
The Government in past economic downturns were always able to hire significant numbers of employees to put the supply and demand of labor back into balance this is not possible with the current political contentious atmosphere, but is the one shorter term solution that is needed for the economies stability. We are in an Unemployment Crisis with is causing a sustained economic crisis at the same time.
Then there is the cut-off of extended benefits which on Dec 28, 2013 left 1.3 million people who were out of work for 27 weeks without any assistance. Here we are 11 weeks later and there are now over 2 million impacted, so about 63,000 Americans lose their UE benefits every week. This also shows how the jobs additions end up in subtractions. See Counter
While all this is going on and most is out of any of our control we continue to work with our job seekers to educate them about the best way to find a job.
I call it Smart Job Hunting - the successful strategies, techniques and tactics of people finding work in a globalized, high-tech, new economy.
