AUG#: +130,000 jobs.

Unemployment up at 3.7%...AUG jobs under Trump HERE

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Changes in State Eligibility for Unemployment Insurance (September 2013)

Changes in state unemployment rates announced last week have resulted in changes in availability of unemployment insurance benefits in Mississippi and Wisconsin.  Changes will take effect September 14th.

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There have been changes to available weeks of benefits in California, Rhode Island, Washington, Alaska, North Carolina, Delaware, Illinois, Alabama, Mississippi, and Michigan in recent months.  Please check THIS LINK (How Many Weeks of Unemployment Will I Get?) for details.

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As unemployment insurance benefits are tied into the unemployment rate for your particular state, changes to your state's unemployment rate may increase or decrease the number of weeks of benefits to which you are entitled.

Weeks of unemployment insurance availability are changing for Mississippi and Wisconsin. 

The Department of Labor announced changes HERE for the above listed states on August 19th, as listed below:
  • People in Mississippi Cannot Move To Tier 4:
Mississippi's TUR has fallen below 9.0% and triggers "off" Tier 4 of EUC08 effective 9/14/2013. 
Based on data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on August 19, 2013, the three month average, seasonally adjusted total unemployment rate in Mississippi fell below the 9.0% trigger rate threshold to remain "on" in Tier 4 of EUC08. The week ending September 14, 2013, will be the last week in which EUC08 claimants in Mississippi could exhaust Tier 3 and establish Tier 4 eligibility. Under the phase-out provisions, claimants could receive any remaining entitlement they had in Tier 4 after September 14, 2013.
The maximum number of weeks of unemployment insurance available in Mississippi will decline from 73 weeks to 63 weeks after September 14, 2013, though people on Tier 4 before September 14th can complete those 10 weeks. 

  • People in Wisconsin Cannot Move to Tier 3: 
Wisconsin's TUR has fallen below 7.0% and triggers "off" Tier 3 of EUC08 effective 9/14/2013. 
Based on data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on August 19, 2013, the three month average, seasonally adjusted total unemployment rate in Wisconsin fell below the 7.0% trigger rate threshold to remain "on" in Tier 3 of EUC08. The week ending September 14, 2013, will be the last week in which EUC08 claimants in Wisconsin could exhaust Tier 2 and establish Tier 3 eligibility. Under the phase-out provisions, claimants could receive any remaining entitlement they had in Tier 3 after September 14, 2013.
The maximum number of weeks of unemployment insurance available in Wisconsin will decline from 63 weeks to 54 weeks after September 14, 2013, though people on Tier 3 before September 14th can complete those 10 weeks. 

Other changes in the last three months:


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Thursday, August 15, 2013

What Is Behind This "Divide and Conquer"? Talking About Part-time Jobs..


If your hours are cut down to under thirty, you are supposed to blame it on Obama and the Democrats?  Oh Lordy.
  
Cartoon by Henry Payne was used by a TeaParty blog to trash Obama.

The following quote is from a recent article published by NBC News about employers responding to the Affordable Health Care Act, also known as ObamaCare.  It was published as an "investigation":
Employers around the country, from fast-food franchises to colleges, have told NBC News that they will be cutting workers’ hours below 30 a week because they can’t afford to offer the health insurance mandated by the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

"(Business owner) Goodridge said he’s cutting the hours of 50 workers to no more than 29 a week so he won’t trigger the provision in the new health care law that requires employers to offer coverage to employees who work 30 hours or more per week. The provision takes effect in 16 months."

"The provision takes effect in 16 months"  

Yes, that's right. Emphasis mine up there.. The employer mandate has been delayed a year, so all of these employers who are claiming they are cutting their employees' hours now due to Obamacare may perhaps be LYING to their employees.  For all we know, they are Republican supporters who want their employees to vote Republican in 2014 by blaming the Democrats for a decrease in their hours.  In particular, they may want to "punish" the people who are not well off financially, the minorities, the younger people, all of the people who tended to vote for Obama, by insinuating "See?  I have to cut your hours because you elected Obama."   That's not what they will tell their employees, but that's the message that they may be hoping to get across.

The woes of employees... .What should they know?

The story then highlighted a Subway employee working in Maine who told of his financial problems now, before the cutbacks.  There is no evidence that the reporter said to him:  "You know that your employer will not be working under this mandate until January 2015?  Why do you think he/she wants to cut your hours before that?"   


The Obama administration's response to the article was:


The White House dismisses such examples as "anecdotal." Jason Furman, chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisors, said, “We are seeing no systematic evidence that the Affordable Care Act is having an adverse impact on job growth or the number of hours employees are working. … [S]ince the ACA became law, nearly 90 percent of the gain in employment has been in full-time positions.”

(The cartoon above was found at a Tea Party blog.  Apparently, the Tea People didn't get the irony or understand the cartoon:  "Minions" means "a servile dependent, follower, or underling.  The cartoon aptly describes the attitude of many employers towards their employees.  The Tea Party blog instead blames Obama:   

Thanks to the Obama jobs recovery program and Obamacare, we have become a nation of part-time workers. .. Thanks, Obama.  You have really screwed the United States....)

Have we really become a "nation of part-time workers since the ACA was passed?

Since the ACA was passed, in March 2010, there are 5,518,000 more people employed.  4,895,000 of those people are working full-time, considered 35 hours or more.  In the last year, 2,035,000 more people were employed, 1,612,000 of those people are working full-time.  In another measure that the BLS monitors, the average work week of production and non-supervisory workers in the private sector has increased about .3 hours a week (18 minutes) since ACA was passed.  In the past year, that number is down just about .1 hour a week (6 minutes).

Protests Needed

Employers have been talking about reducing employee's hours for over a year now, and it has harmed some of them due to public protests.  That is the correct response.. and that's where the energies of such groups as the people who were former Occupy supporters should be aimed:  At making it clear to the public that these places of employment, instead of finding a way to treat their employees reasonably, as required by law, are instead threatening to cut their hours and their livelihoods.          




Divide and Conquer


My sense is that when such pro-worker's laws such as the minimum wage, overtime laws, OHSA, etc., went into effect legions of employers also threatened to layoff workers (or actually did layoff workers) blaming the Democratic-sponsored legislation.  This is typical divide-and-conquer stuff:  Tell the workers that people and legislation designed to help them, such as the minimum wage, ObamaCares, or other pro-worker and pro-human legislation, is going to result in their jobs or hours being cut.  Let the workers feel sorry and feel sympathy for the poor struggling employer who really WANTS to keep all of his people working full-time.. but the big nasty government with all of those Democrats (including Obama at the top) won't let him.  Oh boo hoo...  


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Sunday, August 11, 2013

How Many People Are Fired Each Year in the United States? (Updated for early 2017)

How Many People Are Fired or Laid Off Each Year in the United States?  How Many People Are Fired Each Day in the United States?


(This article has been updated with data from the month of
February 2017.) 

How many people are not working in the U.S.?  How many adults are not working in the U.S.?  Here!
Hold on...  These numbers sound staggering:

An average of 54,549 people were laid off or fired EACH DAY (including weekends and holidays) in 2016. (19,965,000 people in total were laid off or fired in the 366 days of 2016.)

Monthly layoffs & discharges in thousands from the BLS JOLTS survey.


An average of 54,966 people have been laid off or fired each day (including weekends and holidays) in the first two months of 2017.  A total of 3,243,000 people have been laid off or fired in the first 59 days of 2017 (through February).

These sound like big numbers, but the 2016 number is the LOWEST number of annual layoffs in the 16 years since 2001.

These are huge numbers.... So.... how can the jobs numbers keep going up?  Is someone lying?  

READ MORE HERE!
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Saturday, August 3, 2013

How Many Jobs Were Created or Lost in July 2013?



162,000 new jobs were CREATED or ADDED last month, in the month of July 2013.  

The private sector generated (added) 161,000 new jobs and the government sector added (gained) 1,000 jobs in July 2013.

227,000 MORE people reported themselves as working in July 2013. 
         

The unemployment rate dropped to 7.4% in July 2013, due to an increase in the number of people employed (plus about 227,000) and a decrease in the number of people unemployed (minus about 263,000).  About 37,000 people left the labor force in July, the first decline in the size of the labor force in four months.  (The size of the labor force is volatile.  Read more HERE.)    The unemployment rate has been below 8.0% for 11 months in a row now.  

READ MORE HERE!
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Friday, August 2, 2013

Private & Government Jobs Lost & Gained Under Obama (July 2013 update)



How many jobs (total, private, and government) have been lost or gained since Obama was inaugurated? 
  • 4,311,000 TOTAL jobs (in seasonally adjusted numbers) were LOST in from the time Obama took office until the "trough" of the recession in early 2010.  That's a decrease of 3.2%.    
  • 6,718,000 jobs (in seasonally adjusted numbers) were CREATED from the "trough" of the recession until now, July 2013.  That's an increase of 5.2%.
  • In total, 2,407,000  jobs (in seasonally adjusted numbers) were ADDED from the time Obama took office until now, July 2013.  That's an increase of 1.8%.
  • We have experienced 34 months WITHOUT job losses since September 2010.  We have ADDED 6,110,000 jobs during those 34 months. 
  • We now have 136,038,000 TOTAL non-farm jobs. 
*  These are all net figures, meaning that they represent the total number of jobs at the end of a reporting period.  All losses have been subtracted from all gains and vice verse.
    *  For the purposes of comparison, 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 (July 2005), there were only 1,477,000 MORE jobs than when he was inaugurated in January 2001 compared to 2,271,000 MORE for Obama in June 2013.  (This will be updated for July 2013 in the next few days.)
    How many PRIVATE sector jobs have been lost or gained since Obama was inaugurated?
    • 4,198,000 PRIVATE-sector jobs (in seasonally adjusted numbers) were LOST from the time Obama took office until the "trough" of the recession in early 2010.  That's a decrease of 3.8%.
    • 7,336,000 PRIVATE-sector jobs (in seasonally adjusted numbers) were GAINED OR CREATED from the "trough" of the recession until now, July 2013.  That's an increase of 6.9%.
    • In total, 3,138,000 private sector jobs (in seasonally adjusted numbers) have been GAINED from the time Obama took office until now, July 2013.  That's a net increase of 2.8%. *
    • We have experienced 41 months of positive private-sector job GROWTH from February 2010 until July 2013.  We have added 7,336,000 private-sector jobs during those 41 months.    
    • We now have 114,186,000  PRIVATE sector non-farm jobs.
    *As of July 2013,  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 (July 2005), there were only 455,000 MORE private sector jobs than when he was inaugurated in January 2001 compared to 3,003,000 MORE for Obama.    (This will be updated for July in the next few days.)   

    How many GOVERNMENT jobs have been lost or gained since Obama was inaugurated?  (Government jobs include federal, state, and local government jobs.)
    • 113,000 GOVERNMENT jobs (in seasonally adjusted numbers) were LOST from the time Obama took office until the "trough" of the recession in early 2010.  That's a decrease of 0.5%  (about half of a percent). 
    • Another 618,000 GOVERNMENT jobs (in seasonally adjusted numbers) were LOST from the "trough" of the recession until now, July 2013.  That's a decrease of 2.75%.    
    • In total, 731,000 GOVERNMENT jobs (in seasonally adjusted numbers) were LOST from the time Obama took office until now, July 2013.  That's a decrease of 3.2%.  A large portion of these jobs, about 300,000, have been lost in the "Local Government - Education" sector. (Teachers.)
    • We have experienced decreases in the number of government jobs in 16 out of the last 24 months, starting in July 2011.  We have experienced declines in the number of government jobs in the last 4 out of the last 7 months.     
    • We now have 21,852,000 GOVERNMENT jobs, not including people in the military.  (Most civilians employed by the U.S. and working for the military are counted.)
    (Note:  Current numbers taken from the July 2013 Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation Report.  Historical numbers taken from various archived Employment Situation reports as indexed HERE. Specifics will be provided upon request; please email me or leave a comment.)

    An afterthought---

    A reader asks:

    How Many Private Sector Jobs Were Lost Because of Obama?

    We haven't lost ANY private sector jobs (net) since February 2010, a year after Obama took office.  Between January 2009 and February 2010, we lost 4,198,000 private sector jobs as stated above.

    Should we "blame" Obama for not being immediately able to stem the tide of private sector job loss in 2009?  If a house is burning out of control and the fire department comes to put out the fire, it continues to burn until it is brought under control and cooled down, right?  Now.. would you blame the fire department for the continued fire and the time to put it out after the firefighters arrive on the scene?

    Well, you might, but I wouldn't:  Here's my reasoning:  Burning Down the House!

    So my answer to this question would be a big, fat ZERO.  I do NOT feel that Obama is to blame for any loss of jobs between January 2009 and February 2010.  If you think he is, please leave a comment and explain!

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    What Was the Unemployment Rate When Obama Took Office? (July 2013 update)

    What was the unemployment rate when Bush left office and Obama was inaugurated? 7.8%


    What was the unemployment rate after Obama's first full month in office (February 2009)?  8.3%


    What was the unemployment rate at peak?  10.0%
    How many people were looking for work when Obama was inaugurated; how many were working?  And how many people are looking for work and how many are employed now?
    • Read below the graph.
    • The following chart shows the unemployment rate in three month intervals plus month-by-month for the latest three months:  
    Why are there two lines, one for "Seas Adjusted" and one for "Unadjusted"?

    The Bureau of Labor Statistics uses seasonal adjustments to adjust for the volatility in the labor market from one month to the next.  The relatively even red line above shows the unemployment rate based on seasonally adjusted numbers.  The jagged green line shows the unemployment rate based on "real", "raw" numbers; the unadjusted rate.  Notice that the green line goes up in January (after holiday layoffs) and July (school-related layoffs), and it goes down in October and April, which are strong months for workers.  (Employees are all back to school in October, and employers are staffing up for the holidays.  Schools are also full in April and employers are starting to staff up for summer, construction, vacation venues, etc.)  The red line helps us to compare the unemployment rate over a period of months; the green line, however, reflects "reality":  Your friends, neighbors, and family members actually working or not working.  
    READ MORE HERE!
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    How Many Jobs Has Obama Created or Lost? (July 2013 update)


    How many NET jobs created or lost under Obama as of July 2013?
    How many private sector jobs have been lost or added during Obama's presidency?

     How many new jobs in the last 4 years since Obama was inaugurated?  How many jobs has Obama created or lost since taking office?

     How many Americans were working or employed when Obama took office... compared to now?

    Answers to all of these questions below the links..

    Since the "trough" of the recession in late 2009/early 2010 in seasonally adjusted numbers:
    • 6.7 million MORE jobs in total
    • 7.3 million MORE private sector jobs
    • 6.3 million MORE people working 

    Since Bush left office & Obama took office (January 2009) in seasonally adjusted numbers:
    • 2.4 million MORE jobs in total
    • 3.1 million MORE private sector jobs
    • 2.1 million MORE people working

    Have any private jobs been lost (net) over the past 41 months?
    NO!
    • 41 months of consecutive private-sector job growth.

    Have any jobs been lost (net) over the past 34 months?
    NO!   
    • 34 months of consecutive overall job growth.
    Are more people unemployed now than when Obama took office in January 2009?  
    NO!
    • Despite 1,566,000 MORE people in the labor force (either working or actively looking for work) now vs. January 2009, there are 926,000 FEWER people unemployed now than in January 2009. 



    What's the difference between "net" and "gross" jobs gained and lost?


    Let's get something straight:  Jobs are lost every week and every month.  People are fired, people are laid off, businesses or locations are closed and everybody is let go.      

    Also people quit every week.  You yourself, dear reader,  may have quit a job at some point in time. 


    But people are also HIRED every week and every month.  New businesses open, businesses expand, businesses replace people who have left or been fired.  Every week.  You yourself, dear reader, may have been hired for a job at some point in time.This happens in good times and bad. 

    Yes, even in bad times, people are getting hired.  Even in good times, people are let go.  

    Now:  The monthly jobs report, upon which this article is based, presents estimates based on surveys as to how many jobs are gained or lost in a given month.  Those numbers are based on the number of new jobs (people getting hired, businesses opening) MINUS the number of jobs that have been cut (people getting fired, people quitting, businesses closing or cutting back).

    The monthly jobs report therefore reports NET job growth or loss.  


    For 34 months in this country, we have had MORE jobs being added than we have had jobs being cut.  For 41 months in the private sector (not counting federal workers, state or local workers such as teachers, firemen, cops, or people who staff the DMV, only counting people who work for private businesses), we have had MORE jobs added than we have had jobs being cut.

    All numbers provided on monthly jobs reports, which is what the series on jobs created/lost under Obama is based, are NET jobs numbers.  In other words, they reflect gains after all job losses are subtracted, or they reflect job losses after all gains are added. 
    For the past 41 months (as of July 2013), we have had NET gains in private jobs numbers every month.  In other words, in every month since February 2010, more private jobs have been created than have been lost.  In every month since September 2010, more jobs in total have been created than have been lost.


    Fact check and important information on these jobs numbers...

    The above jobs numbers are from the BLS jobs report of July 2013, which was released in August 2013.  The surveys used to gather these numbers are taken as of the week which includes the 12th day of the month, in this case, July 12, 2013. 
    Posted by at 4 comments:

    Thursday, August 1, 2013

    Weekly Unemployment Claims Decline Significantly: What does it mean?

    Weekly unemployment initial claims decline significantly and hit a new low since the Crash.  Is this meaningful?
    What do initial unemployment claims numbers mean?  Are they the same as weekly initial claims?  Why are they important?  HERE! 

    Weekly unemployment initial claims decreased by     19,000 this week to 326,000 after increasing 9,000 last week.  While weekly claims continue to fluctuate, they are still unable to break below a mid 300,000 range of claims, as is obvious from the chart below.  This is the lowest number of initial claims since the Crash, but it is only lower by 1,000 than the 327,000 claims reported in the week ending April 27, 2013. 


    As is always true with weekly claims numbers, they are volatile, and we cannot tell if any increase or decrease is significant unless there is a trend over a period of weeks. 
      

    First time seasonally adjusted unemployment jobless claims declined to 326,000  for the week ending July 27th, a decrease of 19,000 claims.  Since the first week of March, new weekly claims have remained in the 325,000 to 365,000 range for twenty-one out of the past twenty-two weeks.   

     

    The four-week moving average # of claims, which smooths some of the week-to-week volatility, decreased by 4,500 last week after decreasing by 750 the week before.  It is now 341,250.  Initial claims continue now at about the same level that they were five years ago, in late 2007 to early 2008.  


    (Even though the weekly initial claims numbers are seasonally adjusted, these numbers are always a bit volatile and should  only be analyzed in terms of a trend over a period of weeks.  See the graph below.) 



    The chart above is one of the BEST charts for understanding and observing changes in the weekly initial claims numbers over time.  This year (red:  2013) and the past three years (blue:  2010, green:  2011 and black:  2012) are marked in different colors.  You can see that, as a trend, first time claims for unemployment have declined from one year to the next, even though there are variations within the year.  Though the number of initial unemployment claims has been variable over the past three months, it has continued a downward trajectory.  

    Be aware that:
    1. The graph above shows first time claims, so people who have continued to receive benefits or who have lost unemployment benefits are not counted in these numbers.  
    2. They are seasonally adjusted, so most variations caused by weather or holidays are already included in these numbers.  
    3. As these are weekly numbers, they are more volatile than the monthly numbers.
    For the week ending July 13th, 4,695,366 people were receiving unemployment benefits under one of the programs that are available (regular state, federal extended unemployment compensation, or a few other smaller programs).  This was a decrease of about 154,140  overall claims since the previous week. The decrease was due mostly to a drop of 99,577 claims in the number of people receiving benefits in the Regular State program (the first 19 to 26 weeks of benefits).  The number of people receiving benefits under the Federal Extended Benefits program (the "Tiers") dropped about 50,000.

      
    The number of regular state claims has been below     3,200,000 in seasonally adjusted numbers since February.  (At the peak of the Crash, in early 2009, about 6,500,000 regular state claims were filed a week.)  


    About 1,200,000 FEWER     people are receiving unemployment benefits now vs. one year ago.  We do not know what has happened to the people who are no longer receiving benefits; we do not know how many of those 1,200,000 people found employment, how many retired, and how many are still looking for work.  We do know that:

    • There are 1,610,000 more people reporting themselves as employed than a year ago.
    • There are  2,293,000 more non-farm jobs.  
    • We also know that a grand total of 51,864,000 hires have been made by employers between May 2012 and May 2013, the latest month for which numbers are available.  (Some people may have been hired more than once during the year, so the number of "hires" is generally higher than the number of people who have been hired.)  
    • However, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics JOLTS (Job Openings, Layoffs, and Turnover Survey) for May 2013, we still have about 3.1 active jobseekers for every job opening out there. 
    • The percent of unemployed people receiving benefits is now 38.3% for the week ending July 13th.





    From the current report:
    In the week ending July 27, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 326,000, a decrease of 19,000 from the previous week's revised figure of 345,000. The 4-week moving average was 341,250, a decrease of 4,500 from the previous week's revised average of 345,750.
    As usual, to put all of this into perspective, check out the red line on the chart above to see where jobless claims are now, in 2013, compared to the past three years.

    First time unemployment claims decreased by 17,000 over those reported last week.  Last week's initial claims numbers were revised upwards by 2,000.  There are usually slight upwards revisions  (1,000 to 3,000) in the numbers of initial claims in most weeks.  (The chart above shows REVISED claims numbers.)

    The initial claims as announced last week were 343,000, so the claims from that week were revised upwards by 2,000 to 345,000. 


    Current Spring Initial Claims Continue to be the Lowest Since Late 2007/Early 2008.

    As a whole, the current numbers of initial claims continue to be the lowest Winter-Spring initial claims numbers since late 2007/early 2008.
      
    Continuing regular state claims in seasonally adjusted numbers, from people who are continuing to claim unemployment through the initial 19 to 26 week regular unemployment program, decreased by 52,000 for the week ending July 20th after decreasing by 120,000  the week before.  2,951,000 people filed continuing regular state claims in the week ending July 20th.  As a whole, continuing regular claims continue to decline slowly despite some individual weekly increases.  (There were 3,286,000 continuing claims a year ago.) 

    Total number of people receiving unemployment insurance is a very low 38.3% of the officially unemployed for the week ending July 13th.  

    The weekly report also tells us the total number of people who are receiving unemployment benefits.  For the week ending July 13th, 4,695,366 people were receiving unemployment benefits under one of the programs that are available (regular state, extended benefits, federal extended unemployment compensation, or a few other smaller programs).  This compares with 12,248,000 people who are unemployed in unadjusted numbers according to the monthly June unemployment situation report which was released Friday, July 5th.  Those numbers, showing that only 38.3% of the officially unemployed are receiving benefits, should make it clear that people do NOT need to be receiving unemployment insurance to be counted among the unemployed.  (This ratio and these two numbers are NOT seasonally adjusted.)  July monthly unemployment numbers will be released tomorrow, Friday, August 2nd.

    Extended Benefits (EB) No Longer Available in any State

    As of the week ending July 13th, only 806 people were still receiving Extended Benefits, as mentioned above.  A year ago, 13,207 people were receiving Extended Benefits.  As recently as April 2012, 412,411 people were receiving Extended Benefits.

    Therefore, over the 15 months, 99.9% of the people who were receiving Extended Benefits are no longer receiving such benefits.  We do not know how many of these 412,000 people receiving Extended Benefits in April 2012 have found jobs, how many have another source of income in the family, and how many have nothing. 

    To reiterate, while a decrease in the number of people FILING for initial claims is a good thing and indicates that fewer people are being laid off, a decrease in the TOTAL number of people getting unemployment insurance may only show that fewer people are eligible for unemployment insurance benefits.

    Any questions or confusion, please leave a comment or email me!


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