July 2015 Unemployment Rate, Jobs

January 2016 Jobs Report HERE!

July 2015 Highlights:

• +215,000 total new payroll jobs; +210,000 new private sector jobs; a 5,000 increase in the number of government jobs.)  These numbers are slightly less than what the pundits and prognosticators predicted. 
• The BLS increased its May estimate slightly to 260,000 from 254,000 and it increased its June estimate slightly from 221,000 to 231,000.
• The unemployment rate stayed the same at 5.3% as the number of unemployed stayed virtually the same at 8,266,000 (from 8,299,000 in June), continuing to hit new lows since the big recession began in 2007-2008 when we had a much smaller labor force.
• Alternate unemployment rate fell from 10.5% down to 10.4%.  That decrease reflected a decrease in the number of people who were unemployed more than 15 weeks and a decrease in the number of people who were working part-time involuntarily because they couldn't find full-time jobs.  
• Labor force participation rate stayed the same at 62.6%.  The number of people in the labor force increased slightly by 69,000.   Year over year, we have about 1.1 million MORE people in the labor force.  
  
  Remember that there is NO ideal labor force size. 
  
  Actually, inflation-adjusted wages have tended to go up when the labor force participation rate goes down--- Just something to think about if you are one of the many who has been bulldozed by the "Labor force percentage.. .yada, yada, yada..." crowd.  More HERE about the labor force percentage.  
• The reported number of people employed increased by 101,000, the reported number of people unemployed decreased by 33,000. 
• The number of people working full-time increased by 536,000 last month; the number of people working part-time decreased by about 402,000 last month.  Year over year, we have about 3.1 million MORE people working full-time and 700,000 FEWER people working part-time.
  
  
  Since the "trough" of the recession in late 2009/early 2010 in seasonally adjusted numbers:
  • 12.4 million MORE jobs in total
  • 13.0 million MORE private sector jobs
  • 10.8 million MORE people working
  • 11 million MORE people working full-time.
  • 200,000 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. people working 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:

• 8.1 million MORE jobs in total
• 8.8 million MORE private sector jobs
• 6.7 million MORE people working
• 5.8 million MORE people working full-time
• 200,000 FEWER people working part-time

July 2015 reports: (As usual, notation on the links will be changed to "UPDATED for JULY" when the updated reports become available.  Not all reports are updated every month.) 

• What Was the Unemployment Rate When Obama Took Office (compared to today)?  Not yet published for JULY 2015
• How Many Jobs Created or Lost Under Obama? - Full-time vs. Part-time? -  Published for JULY 2015
• How Many Jobs Lost or Gained in July 2015? - Not yet published for JULY
• Private Sector Job Loss/Growth Since 2008 w/ Graph - Not yet updated for July

• How Many Jobs Have Been Created in 2015? - Not yet updated for JULY
• How Many Jobs Have Been Created in 2014? - LATEST REVISIONS INCLUDED
• Jobs Lost/Gained Year by Year Since 1999 - not yet updated for July
• How Many People Have Been Fired in 2014 or 2015?  Updated with latest numbers through May 2015
• How Many People Left or Joined the Work Force (Civilian Labor Force) Since Obama Took Office? - not yet updated for July
• 93 Million People Not in the Labor Force? Who are those people?  Latest update is for April 2015
• How Many Government Jobs Lost or Added Under Obama? - not yet updated for July

July 2015 Jobs Numbers Preview as of Thursday night, August 6:

This will be a short preview as I did spend quite a bit of time watching the Republican debates this evening.   The pundits and prognosticators are predicting decent, but not blockbuster, jobs numbers for July when the BLS releases that report tomorrow morning, Friday, August 7, at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time.

See you all in the morning!

1.  Reuters:  Reuters conducts a survey of economists and reports the consensus:.

The number of U.S. jobs probably rose at a healthy pace in July and wages likely rebounded in data due on Friday, providing further signs of an improving economy that could allow the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates in September.

A Reuters survey of economists forecast U.S. nonfarm payrolls increased by 223,000 last month, matching June's job gains, a number which would be slightly above the monthly average for the first half of the year.

Though the pace of hiring has slowed from last year, it remains double the rate needed to keep up with population growth. The Labor Department will release its closely watched employment report on Friday at 8:30 a.m.

The unemployment rate is forecast to hold steady at a seven-year low of 5.3 percent, near the 5.0 percent to 5.2 percent range most Fed officials think is consistent with a steady but low level of inflation.

2. ADP: The private payroller ADP's report, which usually precedes the BLS report by two days, was disappointing.  ADP estimated that only 185,000 more private-sector jobs were created in July 2015.  ADP estimated increases in all sectors, with the fattest increase in professional and business services.

3.  The June Consumer Sentiment index compiled by the University of Michigan  showed a decline from 96.1 in June to 93.1 in July.  However, the Sentiment Index has increased 14% over the past year.  

Consumer confidence slipped a bit in the July 2015 survey. A disappointing pace of economic growth was the main reason for the small decline in consumer confidence. Nonetheless, the data provide no indication of a break in the prevailing positive trend. Indeed, the Sentiment Index has averaged 94.5 since December 2014, the highest eight month average since 2004. Although one-in-ten consumers, when asked to identify any recent economic developments they had heard, referred negatively to Greece, the Chinese economy, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership on trade, it had virtually no impact on the Sentiment Index. The maintenance of confidence at high levels during the past eight months has been mainly due to modestly positive news on jobs and wages.

 4.  The jobs report by the search engine Linkup.com was higher than the other projections.  A lot of information in that report; if you are a numbers geek, you may find a side trip over to the Link up blog very interesting indeed:  

Based on the 11% and 17% increases in job openings on LinkUp in May and June respectively, we are forecasting a strong jobs report for Friday with a net gain of 310,000 jobs. 

5.  Finally, the number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits AND the number of Americans filing for continuing benefits continue to be very, very low.  The unadjusted number of new claims for the week ending August 1st was the LOWEST number of new claims since...  late 1973....   when we had many fewer people working.  Wow.  You can see more here at the Department of Labor's site.