December 2014 Unemployment Rate, Jobs

Latest (March 2015 reports and numbers) HERE!

December Highlights:

• +252,000 new payroll jobs; +240,000 new private sector jobs.  These large increases are in line with estimates (reported below).
• Unemployment rate declined .2% (two tenths of a percent) to 5.6%.  The number of people unemployed de/increased by 383,000.  The labor force declined by 273,000. 
• Alternate unemployment rate drops to 11.2% (from 11.4%).
• Labor force participation rate declined .2% as 273,000 people left the civilian labor force. However, 111,000 more people were employed in December.
• Number of people working full-time increased by about 427,000 while number of people working part-time decreased by about 269,000.  That's 2,694,000 MORE people working full-time over the past year, since December 2013, and 72,000 MORE people working part-time over the past year. 
• 2,952,000 payroll jobs have been ADDED in 2014 to date in seasonally adjusted numbers.
• The is the largest number of jobs added in a year since 1999.
• The number of involuntary part-time workers (people working part-time because they couldn't find full-time work) decreased 61,000 in December and dropped 976,000 over the past year, since December 2013.
• The number of long-term unemployed (people looking for work over half a year) decreased 37,000 in December, and dropped 1,092,000 over the past year, since December 2013.
• October and November jobs numbers revised upwards by a total of 50,000.

Since the "trough" of the recession in late 2009/early 2010 in seasonally adjusted numbers:

• 10.7 million MORE jobs in total
• 12.2 million MORE private sector jobs
• 9.4 million MORE people working

• 9.4 million MORE people working full-time.
• 27,000 MORE people working part-time.  
• (Yes, despite what you may have heard, from the depth of the recession until now, we have many more additional people working full-time vs. part-time jobs. When a recession hits, companies generally cut back on full-time workers first.  When companies start hiring again, the number of full-time workers increases.)

Since Bush left office & Obama took office (January 2009) in seasonally adjusted numbers:

• 6.4 million MORE jobs in total
• 7.0 million MORE private sector jobs
• 5.3 million MORE people working

• 4.1 million MORE people working full-time
• 1.1 million MORE people working part-time

December 2014 reports: (Notation on the links will be changed to "December" or "Updated for December" when the updated reports become available.) 

• Private Sector Job Loss/Growth Since 2008 w/ Graph - UPDATED for DECEMBER
• What Was the Unemployment Rate When Obama Took Office (compared to today)? - UPDATED for DECEMBER
• How Many Jobs Created or Lost Under Obama? - UPDATED for DECEMBER
• How Many Jobs Lost or Gained in December 2014? - not yet updated for December
• How Many Jobs Have Been Created in 2014? - UPDATED for DECEMBER
• Jobs Lost/Gained Year by Year Since 1999 - UPDATED for DECEMBER

• How Many People Left or Joined the Work Force (Civilian Labor Force) Since Obama Took Office? - UPDATED for DECEMBER
• 93 Million People Not in the Labor Force? Who are those people?  DECEMBER
• How Many Government Jobs Lost or Added Under Obama? - not yet updated for December

• How Many People Have Been Fired in 2014?
• How Many Jobs Were Created in 2013? - UPDATED with final 2013 numbers.

Preview (written Thursday night):

The Republicans have taken over both houses of Congress and Americans are carefully following the latest developments of the terrorist shootings in France...  Meanwhile, the country appears to keep adding healthy numbers of jobs, with 2014 ready to be the best year for job growth since the Clinton boom year of 1999.

"The pundits" expect about 250,000 more jobs when the BLS counts are released, with the unemployment rate dropping to 5.7%.  If there are many more jobs but the unemployment rate stays the same, this would be a good indication that more people have entered the labor force in December.


Some facts and numbers to ponder as we wait for the BLS release:

• The ADP private payroller report came out yesterday which estimated an additional 241,000 private sector jobs in December. This means, according to ADP's estimates, that the US has added over 200,000 private sector jobs 8 out of the last 9 months.
• Bloomberg believes that "The jobless rate probably declined in December to a more than six-year low, according to a Bloomberg survey as of Dec. 30, as employers added almost a quarter million jobs during the month to cap the strongest year for payroll growth since 1999.  
• "The Rasmussen Employment Index which measures worker confidence continues to climb, hitting a six-year high for the second month in a row in December.
  At 104.2, worker confidence is up two points from the previous high of 102.4 in November."
• But job search engine Linkup.com believes "that the U.S. economy added a net gain of only 170,000 jobs in December, well below the 250,000 consensus estimate."  Linkup's reasoning at the link.
• October had the lowest average weekly number of initial unemployment claims since SPRING of 2000!  Weekly initial unemployment claims in November and December were also lower than they have been for years, though not as low as the claims numbers for October.
• Census numbers show that we have finally turned the corner on inflation-adjusted median household income and it is slowly starting to increase.
• Inflation-adjusted weekly and hourly wages for production and non-supervisory employees (which excludes most of the high income people) continue to creep up. These wages have been higher during the Obama years than during any six year period since the mid 1970's.

We can only imagine where we'd be in this economic recovery by now if the Republicans actually worked with Obama and the Democrats for the good of the country.