Update of this report here:
How many jobs created or lost under Obama as of August 2013?
How many jobs created or lost under Obama as of August 2013?
The following numbers are as of June 2012. Please click the link above for current numbers.
How Has Obama done on private-sector jobs?
Since the "trough" of the recession in late 2009/early 2010:
- 3,844,000 MORE jobs in total
- 4,373,000 MORE private sector jobs
- 4,447,000 MORE people working
Since Bush left office & Obama took office (January 2009):
- 473,000 FEWER jobs in total
- 160,000 MORE private sector jobs
- 228,000 MORE people working
Since the stimulus was passed (February 2009):
- 251,000 MORE jobs in total
- 885,000 MORE private sector jobs
- 755,000 MORE people working
Have any private jobs been lost (net) over the past 28 months?
NO!
- 28 months of consecutive private-sector job growth.
Have any jobs been lost (net) over the past 21 months?
NO!
- 21 months of consecutive over all job growth.
(Explanations and detail below. Keep reading.)
Also see: Private Sector Job Loss/Gain since 2008
How many jobs have been lost or gained during the Obama administration? Have more new jobs been created or have more jobs been lost under Obama to date?
However, we are now adding jobs at a fair clip, with an average of 152,000 MORE jobs total added per month since December 2010, and an average of 170,000 MORE jobs added per month in the private sector since December 2010.
Here's a summary of data from the BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics). All numbers lost to the "trough" of the recession reflect ALL non-farm jobs lost between the time Obama took office and the lowest point of the recession in late 2009/early 2010 :
(Note: All of the jobs numbers are NET numbers. In other words, we know that jobs are lost and added every month, in good years and in bad. The numbers reported here, based on Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers, are "net" numbers; that is, the number of jobs gained after the number of jobs lost is subtracted, or the number of jobs lost after the number of jobs gained is added.)Seasonally adjusted:
- All jobs lost from the time Obama took office to "trough" (bottom of recession): .....4,317,000
- All jobs gained since "trough": ....3,844,000
"Raw:" numbers not seasonally adjusted:
- Jobs lost from the time Obama took office to trough: .....4,246,000
- Jobs gained since "trough": .......6,807,000
Net GAIN in raw unadjusted jobs since Obama took office: ..... 2,561,000
*Though, as of April 2012, we still had fewer jobs (in adjusted numbers) than when President Obama took office, jobs are being added at a faster clip under Obama than under George Bush at the same time in his presidency. At this point in Bush's presidency (April 2004), there were still 1,415,000 fewer jobs than when he was inaugurated in January 2001 (compared to 572,000 fewer for Obama). The number of jobs didn't eclipse the number when Bush was first inaugurated until February 2005, in Bush's second term. (This will be updated with June numbers in the next few days.)
How many private sector jobs have been gained or lost since Obama took office?
Seasonally adjusted:
- Private-sector jobs lost to "trough" (bottom of recession): .....4,212,000
- Private-sector jobs gained since "trough": .....4,373,000
*(This is the number often used by Obama and the Democrats as the number of private jobs created since the "trough" of the recession . It is a correct number, but it is a seasonally-adjusted number. In "real" unadjusted numbers, 7,247,000 private sector jobs have been created since the "trough" of the recession.)
Net GAIN in seasonally-adjusted private-sector jobs since Obama took office: ....160,000
"Raw:" numbers not seasonally adjusted:
- Private-sector jobs lost to "trough": .....4,151,000
- Private-sector jobs gained since "trough": .....7,247,000
Net GAIN in "raw" unadjusted private-sector jobs since Obama took office: .....3,096,000
*Though, as of April 2012, we still had fewer private-sector jobs (in adjusted numbers) than when President Obama took office, jobs are being added at a faster clip under Obama than under George Bush at the same time in his presidency. At this point in Bush's presidency (April 2004), there were still 2,194,000 fewer private sector jobs than when he was inaugurated in January 2001 (compared to 35,000 MORE for Obama). The number of private-sector jobs didn't eclipse the number when Bush was first inaugurated until June 2005, in Bush's second term. (This will be updated with May numbers in the next few days.)
How many government jobs have been gained or lost since Obama took office?
Seasonally adjusted:
- Government jobs lost from Obama's inauguration to "trough" (bottom of recession): .....135,000
- Government jobs lost since "trough": .....528,000
- Peak of government jobs, not counting Census 2010 workers, since Obama was inaugurated occurred in April 2009. There were 22,675 government jobs that month. That's 99,000 more government jobs than we had when in January 2009.
- Government jobs lost since that peak in April 2009: 732,000
Net LOSS in seasonally-adjusted government jobs since Obama took office: ....633,000
"Raw:" numbers not seasonally adjusted:
- Government jobs lost to "trough": .....95,000
- Government jobs lost since "trough": .....440,000
Net LOSS in "raw" unadjusted government jobs since Obama took office: .....535,000
Latest (September) Updates (posted in October):
- How Many Fewer or More Jobs Since December 2010? (Jobs month by month 2011-2012)
Summary of June jobs activity:
Jobs increased 80,000 in total in June 2012 (with a revised increase of 77,000 in May). Private sector jobs continued to increase while government sector jobs continued to decrease. Private sector jobs increased by 84,000 (with a revised increase of 105,000 in May), while government jobs decreased by 4,000 (with a revised decrease of 28,000 in May). These numbers may not seem very encouraging, but it is important to remember that they are seasonally adjusted numbers and the number of jobs and the number of people who got jobs in June is higher than 80,000 (see below). Also, a year ago in June 2011, we added only 84,000 seasonally adjusted jobs, but wound up adding 1,860,000 jobs for the year of 2011 anyway.
Is it true that over 4 million private sector jobs have been created in the Obama administration as the Democrats claim?
(Summary of gross and net jobs activity since Obama was inaugurated is below the jump--- Keep reading!)
Yes, if one is looking at numbers created from the bottom ("trough") of the recession. In fact, that number is now low. In seasonally adjusted numbers as of June 2012, 4,373,000 private-sector jobs have been created since the bottom of the recession. (Remember that job loss continued for about a year after Obama was inaugurated.)
Have any jobs been lost over the past 28 months?
Remember that these are NET job gains. In other words, jobs are lost and jobs are gained all of the time, in good economies and in bad. In growing economies, more jobs are gained over a period of months than are lost. In declining economies, more jobs are lost over a period of months than are gained.
Over the past 28 months, we have a net gain (more jobs gained than lost) of 4,373,000 private sector jobs, and a net gain (more jobs gained than lost) of 3,844,000 total jobs. In NET terms, NO private sector jobs have been lost over the past 28 months; we have only added jobs. In NET terms, NO jobs in total have been lost over the past 21 months; we have only added jobs.
How can it be that we haven't lost jobs when the pundits went totally bananas over these recent jobs reports?
The jobs numbers are not what was expected. And we need to add more jobs to recover those lost in the recession and to accommodate the growing population. So while no jobs have been lost, these jobs gains are not seen as sufficient.
Have any jobs been lost over the past 28 months?
Remember that these are NET job gains. In other words, jobs are lost and jobs are gained all of the time, in good economies and in bad. In growing economies, more jobs are gained over a period of months than are lost. In declining economies, more jobs are lost over a period of months than are gained.
Over the past 28 months, we have a net gain (more jobs gained than lost) of 4,373,000 private sector jobs, and a net gain (more jobs gained than lost) of 3,844,000 total jobs. In NET terms, NO private sector jobs have been lost over the past 28 months; we have only added jobs. In NET terms, NO jobs in total have been lost over the past 21 months; we have only added jobs.
How can it be that we haven't lost jobs when the pundits went totally bananas over these recent jobs reports?
The jobs numbers are not what was expected. And we need to add more jobs to recover those lost in the recession and to accommodate the growing population. So while no jobs have been lost, these jobs gains are not seen as sufficient.
How many more or fewer people are employed (net) since Obama took office?
Seasonally adjusted:
- Fewer people working (net) to "trough" : .....4,219,000
- More people working (net) since "trough": ....4,447,000
Net GAIN in seasonally-adjusted number of people working since Obama took office: .....228,000
"Raw:" numbers not seasonally adjusted:
- Fewer workers to "trough": .......3,627,000
- More workers since "trough": .....6,393,000
Net GAIN in "raw" unadjusted number of people working since Obama took office: .....2,766,000
Can you summarize the above?
- Obama was inaugurated in January 2009 when the economy was in free fall and we were losing about 700,000 jobs a month. Over 4,400,000 jobs were lost before Obama took office.
- The employment situation did not bottom out until late 2009 or early 2010. An additional 4,300,000 jobs were lost between the time that Obama took office and the bottom ("trough") of the recession.
- That's a total job loss of at least 8,700,000 jobs over approximately 2 years.
- Since the economy started to add jobs under Obama, 3,844,000 jobs have been added using seasonally-adjusted numbers (See below).
- Since the economy started to add jobs under Obama, 6,807,000 jobs have been added using "real" unadjusted numbers.
- We still need more jobs to overcome the loss of jobs that started in 2008 and to make up for the increase in population since 2008. Please remember that over 49,000,000 people were laid off between Spring of 2008 and the end of 2009, even though people continued to be hired during that time.
- However, we now have MORE jobs total in seasonally unadjusted numbers than we did when Obama took office; we now have MORE private-sector jobs in seasonally adjusted numbers than we did when Obama took office; and we now have MORE people reporting themselves as working in both adjusted and unadjusted numbers than we did when Obama took office.
How did you come up with these numbers? Why isn't there one number instead of all of these?
Counting jobs or workers is very tricky. In seasonal numbers, we lost more jobs and workers in the first year of Obama's administration, when the economy was struggling to pull out of recession, than we gained during the second and third years of Obama's administration when we experienced job growth. In this fourth year of Obama's administration, however, we are now ahead of the numbers of jobs and workers when Obama took office in private jobs numbers and in most seasonally unadjusted numbers of workers and jobs.
Job growth was brisk in the first months of 2011, slowed down towards the middle of the year, then picked up during the last months of the year and into early 2012. Over the last three months, job growth has slowed, but has continued nonetheless. Private sector job growth has continued throughout 2011 into 2012. We now have 28 months straight of private sector job growth.
There's usually no one number that explains everything, and most monthly numbers need to be seen as "trends", not absolutes. People use the unemployment rate, but even that can vary for so many reasons that don't really reflect the true state of the labor market.
A few explanations and more detail:
What is a "trough"? When did we hit the low point of jobs and workers? When did we hit the high point of unemployment?
I use the term "trough" to designate the lowest point of jobs or workers in this recession. The various counts reach their "troughs" in various months, so it may be a bit confusing. The unemployment rate reached its high point in October 2009. The seasonally adjusted number of workers reached its low point in December 2009, but so many workers had dropped out of the work force that the unemployment rate had actually come down. In raw, unadjusted numbers of workers and jobs, we reached our nadir in January 2010. The seasonally-adjusted number of jobs reached its low point a month later, in February 2010.
How Many Jobs were Lost from the time Obama took office until the "trough" of jobs lost?
- In seasonally adjusted numbers, employers reported 133,561,000 jobs in January 2009. At the trough of the recession in February 2010, there were 129,244,000 jobs. That's a loss of 4,317,000 jobs from the time Obama took office until the "trough" of the recession.
- In "raw" numbers (not adjusted for seasonal variances), employers reported 131,555,000 jobs in January 2009. At the trough of the recession in January 2010, there were 127,309,000 jobs. That's a loss of 4,246,000 jobs from the time Obama took office until the "trough" of the recession.
- In seasonally adjusted numbers, 142,187,000 people reported themselves as employed in January 2009. At the trough of the recession in December 2009, 137,968,000 people reported themselves as employed. That's a loss of 4,219,000 employed people from the time Obama took office until the "trough" of the recession.
- In "raw" numbers (not adjusted for seasonal variances), 140,436,000 people reported themselves as employed in January 2009. At the trough of the recession in January 2010, 136,809,000 people reported themselves as employed. That's a loss of 3,627,000 employed people from the time Obama took office until the "trough" of the recession.
What was the unemployment rate when Obama took office? How high did it go?
- For the record, when Obama took office in January 2009, the "official" unemployment rate in seasonally adjusted numbers was 7.8%, with 12,049,000 people reported themselves as unemployed and actively looking. In "raw" numbers not adjusted for seasonal variance, the unemployment rate was already 8.5% with 13,009,000 people reporting themselves as unemployed and actively looking for work.
- At the trough of the recession in late 2009/early 2010, the "official" unemployment rate in seasonally adjusted numbers was 10.0% in October 2009 with 15,421,000 people (out of a labor force of about 153,822,000) reporting themselves as unemployed. In "raw" numbers not adjusted for seasonal variance, the unemployment rate reached a peak of 10.6% in January 2010 with 16,147,000 (out of a labor force of about 153,000,000) reporting themselves as unemployed and actively looking for work.
- Now, in June 2012, the "official" unemployment rate in seasonally adjusted numbers is 8.2%, which is equal to the May 2012 unemployment rate with 12,749,000 (out of a labor force of 155,163,000) reporting themselves as unemployed. In unadjusted "raw" numbers, the unemployment rate is now 8.4%, an increase of .5% (five-tenths or a half of a percent) compared to the unadjusted unemployment rate in May 2012. (Remember, the unadjusted unemployment rate was 8.5% when Obama was inaugurated.)
How many jobs have been created since the "trough" of the recession in late 2009/early 2010 to now, June 2012?
- In seasonally adjusted numbers, 3,844,000 jobs have been created since the "trough" of the recession in February 2010.
- In raw unadjusted numbers, 6,807,000 jobs have been created since the "trough" of the recession in January 2010.
How many more people reported they were working since the "trough" of the recession in late 2009/early 2010 to now, June 2012?
- In seasonally adjusted numbers, 4,447,000 more people are working since the trough of the recession in November 2009.
- In "raw" unadjusted numbers, 6,393,000 more people are working since the trough of the recession in January 2010.
(Note: All of my employment number reports are based on monthly reports and data published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Monthly numbers reports are based on the monthly Employment Situation Report. The Employment Situation report includes month over month and year over year numbers of jobs and workers. My analysis is taken from the monthly BLS data copied to an Excel spreadsheet every month. I calculate detailed percentage increases/decreases, 3 month numbers, 2011 to date numbers, and I compare jobs numbers to those at the time of Obama's inauguration and at the "trough" of the recession. As the BLS revises its numbers as new information is available, I use the latest available numbers in my monthly articles, which means that those numbers may differ slightly from numbers published in previous months.)
i did not see any numbers for those who have run out of benefits. I did not see any numbers for those who quit looking after being unemployyed for so long. I did not see any numbers for those who are only part-time and underemployed. i did not see any numbers for those jobs that were filled by "foreign workers" or "foreign students" on work visas. I did not see any of the numbers for the "change in classification" of a job, then reported as new. I do not see a place for yahoo id..i do not have any of the others listed below. Jeff LaFleur
ReplyDeleteJeff, many of those numbers are included in the BLS Employment Situation Report . I attempt to summarize that information here.
ReplyDelete1. Benefits have nothing to do with whether one is counted or not counted as unemployed. If you are still looking for work, you are counted as unemployed. If you are not looking for work, you are counted as "not in the labor force". When it is determined whether or not people are unemployed, they are not asked whether or not they collect benefits. How the unemployment rate is calculated
2. The BLS does provide some information on people who are not looking for work. The number of discouraged workers has come down over the past year by about 250,000. See Summary Table A in the Employment Situation Report I linked above.
There's another breakdown here: People not in the work force You can also see from that chart that very few of the people who are not in the labor force (that is, not actively looking for work) want a job now.
3. Part-timers who are working part-time by choice: Also Summary Table A: 18.8 million. This number has been fairly stable. Part-time because they can't find full-time work or their hours have been reduced: About 8 million. This number has been trending down over the past year.
4. Discouraged workers plus part-timers who want full-time work plus the regular unemployed are counted as underemployed in the U-6 number which you can find in Table A-15. Though that number was up slightly this month, it has been trending down over the past year.
5. Foreign workers are a problem. Here's an organization trying to do something about the issue: Brightfuturejobs. com
6. Jobs numbers are NET... So such a change in classification would not make any difference one way or another. The number of employees would still be the same. There is no benefit to employers to report employees who aren't actually working for them. In fact, they might have to pay unemployment taxes for extra employees, so there is incentive NOT to inflate any number of employees.
I'll make this real simple go to http://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cpseea01.htm, use the number for 2007 146,047K and the number from 2012 142,220K on number of people employed. It's down 3.8 million. Very simple math straight from the government. So don't tell me there is no job loss. BTW- these numbers are only NON GOVERNMENT jobs, the ones without there would be no government. The next number to look at is the population, it went from 231,867K to 243,354 which means, 11,487K increase in population. So back to simple math, got 11 Mil more people than 2007 and 3 Mil less jobs, yeah were doing great.
ReplyDeleteRambling, you may wish that things were that simple, as simple things are easier for simple minds to understand, but jobs numbers often are not that simple.
DeleteFirst, it is clear that you don't understand the difference between the jobs reports and the employment numbers. The monthly jobs and unemployment numbers come from two different reports and, while they parallel each other over time, they are not the same. The monthly employment situation report, which I reference over and over again, (twice on this page) explain the difference between the two surveys.
Secondly, it is clear that you have absolutely NO idea what you are looking at when you look at BLS numbers. I would suggest that you spend some time at the BLS site and read the notes that you know what you are looking at.
The numbers you have quoted, the 142,220,000 now, represent people EMPLOYED as reported by the Current Population Survey. This includes ALL people employed (except for military) including agricultural workers and self-employed people. It is about 10% higher than the jobs numbers that are reported monthly. The jobs numbers are reported by employers, both government and private employers, but they don't include farm workers nor small business people who are self-employed.
You are also using an annual employment number for 2007 and a monthly number for 2012. It's always better to compare apples with apples and oranges with oranges, wouldn't you say?
You wrote: "It's down 3.8 million. Very simple math straight from the government. So don't tell me there is no job loss."
Who was the President in 2007? Have you forgotten? Who was the President when the first 4.4 million of those jobs went missing? I'll give you a simple clue: It wasn't Obama. The title of this particular post is "How many jobs has OBAMA created or lost?" We're not talking here about the number of jobs lost in the final months of the Bush administration in this post. If you are interested in how many jobs we lost BEFORE Obama took the oath of office, try these posts:
Jobs lost before Obama took office
What was your life like in January 2009?
Now the chart above shows private sector total job loss and where we are in our attempts to recover those jobs. We have now started to increase jobs and workers above the numbers we had when Obama took office. Why you would have expected Obama (or anyone) to be able to stimulate the economy and add jobs from the day he was inaugurated is beyond me. How long does it take firefighters to put out a fire, cleanup people to clear debris, and construction people to rebuld whatever burned? Would you obstruct a firetruck on its way to put out a fire? Would you do whatever you could to keep the people clearing the debris from doing their work so that the building could not be rebuilt?
Try this:
Burning Down the House!
MORE...
Part 2...
Delete"BTW- these numbers are only NON GOVERNMENT jobs, the ones without there would be no government. "
No. The numbers of people employed, which you quoted, include people who work for the government. And your sentence taken as a whole makes absolutely no sense. 20,000,000 people who are employed say they work for the government. (Employment situation Table A-8).
"The next number to look at is the population, it went from 231,867K to 243,354 which means, 11,487K increase in population."
Between July 2007 and July 2012, the civilian non-institutional population 16+ did increase by about 12,000,000 people. Of course, you have no idea what this means, do you? It includes kids 16 and 17 years old who are in high school. It includes people who are attending college full time. It includes people who are home minding children. It includes people who are retired. It includes people who are disabled and can't work. (It doesn't include people in the military, people in prisons or nursing homes.)
Do you know where the biggest increase in the "non-institutional civilian population" is found? No, of course you don't know; you wouldn't make these statements if you did.
I'll tell you. Of those 12,000,000 more people that you insist we need jobs for, about 1.4 million are young people 16-24. There are 1.3 million FEWER people who are 25-54 years old.
And.. ta da!! 11.8 million of those "extra" 12 million people are people 55 years and older. And what happens when people turn 55? They start to leave the labor force in droves. Now remember these are mostly people aging from under 55 in 2007 to over 55 now, in the last 5 years; they aren't new people coming into the country. They simply don't all need jobs.
So you tell me... if the number of people who have turned 55 in the past 5 years is about 11.8 million, and every year a big chunk of people over 55 leave the labor force, how many extra jobs do we really need for those extra 12 million people, most of whom are fast approaching retirement age?
Or do you want to see those 55+ people work until they drop dead?
These jobs numbers aren't really so simple, are they?
It sure as heck ain't as complicated as you are making it.
ReplyDelete