How Many Jobs Were Created in 2011? (Link to 2013 included)

Latest (2013 to date, all 2012 & 2011) jobs numbers HERE!!

How Many Jobs Were Created in 2013 to date?

How Many Jobs Were Created in the Past Year? (Oct 2012 to Oct 2013)

The numbers below are as of May 2011.  For current numbers, please click one of the links above.

How Many Jobs Were Created in 2011? (End of year total)

How many jobs were created in all of 2011, from December 2010 to May 2011?  Have jobs been lost in 2011?

• In seasonally adjusted numbers, 783,000 jobs have been created in 2011.  That's 156,600 a month.
• In "raw" unadjusted numbers, 703,000 jobs have been created in 2011.  That's 140,600 a month.

In 2011, we have had only gains in jobs and numbers of workers.  To repeat, no jobs or workers have been lost in 2011.

How many jobs were created over the past three months from February 2011 to May 2011?

• In seasonally adjusted numbers, 480,000 jobs have been created in the last three months.  That's 160,000 a month.
• In "raw" unadjusted numbers,  2,759,000 jobs have been created in the last three months.   That's 919,600 a month.   (Over 900,000 jobs a month?  I had to double check that as well, but that's what has happened.)

How many jobs were created over the past year, from May 2010 to May 2011?

• In seasonally adjusted numbers, 870,000 new jobs were created over the past year.  That's 72,500 a month.
• In "raw" unadjusted numbers,  952,000 job have been created in the past year.  That's 79,300 a month.

How many jobs have been created since the "trough" of the recession in late 2009/early 2010 to now, May 2011?

• In seasonally adjusted numbers, 1,797,000 jobs have been created since the "trough" of the recession in January 2010.  That's 120,000 jobs a month.
• In raw unadjusted numbers, 4,444,000 jobs have been created since the "trough" of the recession in January 2010.  That's 277,750 jobs a month.

How many jobs were created in the last month?

• In seasonally adjusted numbers, 54,000 jobs have been created in the last month.
• In raw unadjusted numbers, 680,000 have been created in the last month.

How can these two numbers, the "seasonally adjusted" and the "non-seasonally adjusted (raw)" jobs numbers be so, so far apart? 


54,000 vs. 680,000?  Well, May is historically a hiring month.  Actually all Spring  months are hiring months.  Even in the deepest part of the recession in early 2009, jobs were added in the Spring.  We would expect to see dynamite job creation of close to a million "real" jobs in May, giving us an adjusted number of jobs added in the range of 200,000 to 250,000.  We didn't quite get there this May, with only 680,000 "real" jobs added.


As so many May jobs have to do with summer vacations, people going places for weekends, people just relaxing and hanging out, we could infer that higher gas prices are posing a concern to the employers of such places and they have held off a bit in hiring.


I've heard that the 54,000 new jobs are all the McDonald jobs that we heard about last month.  Is that true?


McDonald's had a hiring day in April and hired 62,000 people from the million applications that they received.  It is unknown exactly how many of the 62,000 were onboard and officially employed by McDonald's during the week of May 12th, the week used for monthly employment reporting.  There was a raw, unadjusted increase of about 170,000 jobs in "Food services and drinking places", so there is plenty of room in the unadjusted numbers for many of the McDonald's hires.  Remember that in raw numbers, there were 680,000 new jobs in May, not 54,000.


How many more people reported they were working in all of 2011, from December 2010 to May 2011?

• In seasonally adjusted numbers, 573,000 more people are working in 2011.  That's an increase of 107,000 workers per month..
• In "raw" unadjusted numbers, 869,000 more people are working in 2011.  That's an increase of 173,800 workers a month.

How many more people reported they were working over the past three months from February 2011 to May 2011?

• In seasonally adjusted numbers, 206,000 more people are working since February 2011.   That's an increase of 69,000 workers a month.
• In "raw" unadjusted numbers, 1,935,000 more people are actually working since February 2011.  That's a whopping increase of 645,000 workers a month.

(Again, remember that Spring months are big hiring months... always, even in the depth of the recession in Spring 2009, people were getting jobs in the Spring.)

How many more people reported they were working over the past year, from May 2010 to May 2011?

• In seasonally adjusted numbers, 426,000 more people are working over the past year.  That's an increase of 35,500 more workers a month.
• In "raw" unadjusted numbers, 531,000 more "real" people are working over the past year.  That's an increase of  44,250 more workers a month.

How many more people reported they were working since the "trough" of the recession in late 2009/early 2010 to now, May 2011?

• In seasonally adjusted numbers, 1,819,000 more people are working since the trough of the recession in December 2009.  That's an increase of 107,000 more workers a month.
• In "raw" unadjusted numbers, 3,219,000 more people are working since the trough of the recession in January 2010.  That's a huge increase of 202,000 more people working a month.

How many more people reported they were working in the past month?

• In seasonally adjusted numbers, 105,000 more people are working in the last month.
• In "raw" unadjusted numbers, 367,000 more people are working in the last month.

If the "raw" unadjusted numbers of new jobs and new workers are so decent (680,000 new jobs reported; 367,000 new workers reported), maybe things aren't so bad?  Could the adjustments be wrong? 


Again, employment always goes up in the Spring, and May is usually a big hiring month.        


Just for the record, let's look at May hiring in a few prior years:


1994:

• New workers (adjusted):         534,000
• New workers (unadjusted):   1,342,000
• New jobs (adjusted):              189,000
• New jobs (unadjusted):           954,000

1997:

• New workers (adjusted);         255,000
• New workers (unadjusted):      936,000
• New jobs (adjusted):              138,000
• New jobs (unadjusted):        1,014,000

2000:

• New workers (adjusted):       -992,000  (fewer workers)
• New workers (unadjusted):    -254,000  (fewer workers)
• New jobs (adjusted):             231,000 
• New jobs (unadjusted):       1,059,000  

2003: 

• New workers (adjusted);       -200,000 (fewer workers)
• New workers (unadjusted):     143,000
• New jobs (adjusted):              -17,000 (fewer jobs)
• New jobs (unadjusted):          729,000 

2006:

• New workers (adjusted);        288,000
• New workers (unadjusted):     636,000
• New jobs (adjusted):               75,000 
• New jobs (unadjusted):          769,000

2008:

• New workers (adjusted);      -285,000  (fewer workers) 
• New workers (unadjusted):    207,000 
• New jobs (adjusted):             -49,000  (fewer jobs)
• New jobs (unadjusted):         648,000    

2010:

• New workers (adjusted);        -35,000 (fewer jobs)
• New workers (unadjusted):    195,000
• New jobs (adjusted):            431,000
• New jobs (unadjusted):      1,090,000  (The 2010 numbers for May included about 450,000 temporary Census workers.  Most were hired in April and May and were released in June and July.)

And let's repeat 2011 in the same format:

• New workers (adjusted);        105,000  
• New workers (unadjusted):     367,000 
• New jobs (adjusted):              54,000
• New jobs (unadjusted):         680,000    

(All of my numbers come from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation Archived and Current News Releases.)


This month's numbers wouldn't be so concerning if we hadn't encountered such a deep, dark Recession and if we didn't have so many still out of work.  The numbers for May are similar to the numbers for May of 2005 and 2006, which were two of the most decent job creating years in the last decade.

But they don't show the dynamism needed to lower the high unemployment rate or spur demand among consumers.  We need job growth such as we had in the mid to late 1990's to really get people back to work.