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

Friday, September 4, 2015

August 2015 Unemployment Rate, Jobs



August 2015 Bureau of Labor Statistics Jobs Numbers and Unemployment Rate were released Friday, September 4.  September Jobs Reports will be released Friday, October 2, at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time.



August numbers:  

  • 173,000 total new payroll jobs; 140,000 new private sector jobs; a 33,000 increase in the number of government jobs.)  These numbers are less than what the pundits and prognosticators predicted, probably due to uncertainty in the markets and uncertainty over China.  This is a fairly low number of private sector jobs, and a relatively high number of new government jobs.
    (Full-time/part-time breakdown will be available  HERE later today.)
  • The BLS increased its June estimate from +231,000 to +245,000, and the July estimate was revised from +215,000 to +245,000. "With these revisions, employment gains in June and July combined were 44,000 more than previously reported. Over the past 3 months, job gains have averaged 221,000 per month."
  • The unemployment rate declined to 5.1% as the number of unemployed decreased by a large 237,000. We now have 8,029,000 officially unemployed, the lowest number of unemployed since early 2008, over 7 years ago.  The size of the labor force stayed almost exactly the same, with a minor decrease of 41,000.
  • Alternate unemployment rate fell from 10.4% down to 10.3%.  That decrease reflected a decrease in the number of people who were not looking for work because they were discouraged, a decrease in the number of people who were working part-time involuntarily because they couldn't find full-time jobs, and a decrease in the number of people who are "marginally attached" to the labor force, meaning they want a job, had looked recently, but couldn't look due to illness, childcare issues, transportation issues, or because they were in school.
  • Labor force participation rate stayed the same at 62.6%.  The number of people in the labor force decreased slightly by 41,000.   Year over year, we have about 1.1 million MORE people in the labor force.  Remember that there is NO ideal labor force size.
  • The overall number of people employed increased by  196,000.
  • The number of people working full-time increased by 435,000 last month; the number of people working part-time decreased by about 349,000 last month.  The percentage of people working full-time continues to climb, now at its  highest level since late 2008.   Year over year, we have about 3.3 million MORE people working full-time and 800,000 FEWER people working part-time.
Since the "trough" of the recession in late 2009/early 2010 in seasonally adjusted numbers:

  • 12,639,000 MORE payroll jobs in total
  • 13,120,000 MORE private sector jobs
  • 11,023,000 MORE people working (includes self-employed and agricultural workers)
  • 11,465,000 MORE people working full-time.
  • 563,000 FEWER people working part-time.
  • 2,750,000 FEWER people are working part-time involuntarily. 
Since Bush left office & Obama took office (January 2009) in seasonally adjusted numbers:
  • 8,311,000 MORE jobs in total
  • 8,895,000 MORE private sector jobs
  • 6,884,000 MORE people working
  • 6,206,000 MORE people working full-time
  • 539,000 MORE people working part-time
  • 1,563,000 FEWER people working part-time INVOLUNTARILY (because they couldn't find a full-time job.)  
  • About 750,000 MORE people are working part-time voluntarily..  because they WANT to work part-time... since Obama was inaugurated. 
August 2015 reports: (As usual, notation on the links will be changed to "UPDATED for August" when the updated reports become available.  Not all reports are updated every month.) 


Preview (written before the BLS released the above report):

The "pundits" are still expecting an additional 220,000 jobs when the numbers are announced in the next hour, but there is some uncertainty.  Job openings in August were off the pace of May and June, and the craziness in the stock market has let to confusion and concern.  First time unemployment claims numbers are still very, very low, but they aren't quite as low as they were in late July. 

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