How Many People Are Fired Each Year in the United States? (Early 2017 update)

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!

How many jobs lost or gained in total under Obama?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?  

How Many Jobs Were Gained or Lost Under Trump During His First 100 Days?

Trump recently claimed that he was responsible for the creation of 600,000 jobs since he took office 100 days ago.  

Yes?  No?  Maybe so?

First, here's a chart that shows how Trump stacks up against Obama and George W Bush in terms of PRIVATE sector jobs.  It shows total private sector jobs from the prior peak of jobs under W back in early 2008, down through the Recession, and back up under Obama, so far continuing under Trump, as of the data available from March 2017:

Private jobs added over the past 9 years including those added during the young Trump administration 

Trump Fantasies

About two weeks ago, on April 11th, just a few days after the March jobs numbers were published, Trump insisted that he was responsible for the creation of 600,000 new jobs since he was inaugurated back in January.

CNN and several other venues called him on it and made it clear that this was not true.  CNN gave Trump credit for the 317,000 new jobs reported in February (219,000) and March (98,000).  But even CNN got things a bit wrong.  CNN wrote:

A White House spokesman said Trump is including all the job added in January as well (216,000). Trump was only in office for 11.5 days that month.

But even if you give him all of the gains for January, that still only brings the tally to 533,000 jobs created so far in 2017.

The math doesn't quite add up to 600,000.

Does anyone in the White House know how the BLS counts jobs?  Does anyone from CNN know how the BLS counts jobs?

CNN counted the net jobs added by employers and reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics during February and March.  Those numbers do add up to 317,000.  (Remember that all jobs reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics are NET jobs:  Jobs added after all jobs that were lost are subtracted and vice verse.)

One big problem with that though:  Jobs numbers are reported as of the week of the previous month that contains the 12th day of that month.  So January 2017 jobs numbers reflect jobs in the country as of the week of January 12, 2017.  And who was President on January 12, 2017?  Yeah.. A guy named Barack Obama.  So not one blessed job that was reported in January 2017 belongs in the Trump column!  Even CNN talked about a fraction of the jobs added in January as though they might belong in Trump's column..   but that's just plain wrong.

But, but, but.. all of those new jobs Trump is talking about!

Trump was also claiming that the new hires promised by corporations such as Ford, etc., should be attributed to him.  But let's remember that, when you back away from NET jobs, employers in the United States ACTUALLY added a GROSS average of 5.2 million jobs a MONTH in 2016.  So there is plenty of room in those 5.2 million jobs for new hires from Ford, GM, ExxonMobil and all the rest to add employees.  (Let's not forget that about 1.6 million people a month on average were terminated for various reasons in 2016 and about 3.1 million people a month quit their jobs voluntarily for various reasons in 2016.)

We'll have to watch Trump's jobs claims very carefully.  Two things are definitely true about Trump:

• He lies; his staff lies, and they all lie some more.
• He doesn't have any idea what the jobs reports really show.     

And my biggest concern about Trump:

I'm concerned that he will try to cut the staff or the quality control of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and we may wind up not knowing what the jobs numbers really are.  Democracy dies in the dark.  

How Many Jobs Has Trump Created or Lost?

Latest information and posts here:

• Obama's final jobs numbers HERE.
• Trump's million jobs:  Good or bad? HERE
• How Many Jobs Has Trump Created or Lost? Latest report for July 2017 HERE
  
  August numbers will be available Friday, September 1.

March 2017 Unemployment Rate, Jobs

Under Construction!!

Check back later this afternoon, Friday, April 7th.

When Do We Get March Jobs Numbers?

When will March 2017 jobs numbers and unemployment rate be released?

Image found at CTnewsjunkie from shutterstock

T
The ADP report for March will be released Wednesday, April 5th.  

(Note:  The ADP report for March was released on Wednesday, and it showed an addition of 263,000 private sector jobs.)

ADP is NOT the official government jobs number report.  It is produced and published by payroll processor ADP and is usually released on a Wednesday two days before the big government Bureau of Labor Statistics report.  Though it is not an official report, it tends to move in concert with the BLS report and is considered to foreshadow the BLS report which follows a couple of days later.

The March Bureau of Labor Statistics (government BLS) Employment Situation report, the report that includes the number of new jobs and the unemployment rate, will be released Friday, April 7th.  This is the big report that everybody waits for.  The March report will be the second jobs report of Trump's presidency.

Note:  The BLS jobs report was released on Friday, April 7.  It showed an addition of 98,000 jobs, including 89,000 private sector jobs.  More details HERE.

Job openings?  The Jobs Openings, Layoffs, and Turnover Survey (JOLTS) is always a month plus behind the actual Employment Situation jobs report.  The JOLTS report for February will be released Tuesday, April 11th.  The JOLTS report for March will not be released until Tuesday, May 9.

Record Number of Job Openings Under Obama!

United States employers reported the highest number of job openings EVER in 2016 since the US started keeping track of these numbers in 2000.  

An average of 5.6 million job openings were reported each month during 2016.

The JOLTS Report

Every month the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) lists the number of job openings, new hires, and separations for various reasons, such as people being laid off or people quitting. This report is called the Job Openings, Layoffs, and Turnover Survey (JOLTS) and it is released about two months after the regular monthly jobs report; in other words, the JOLTS report for January is not released until early March.  It is a fairly new report, and has only been released since 2000.

Details

In 2016, United States employers reported the highest number of job openings ever.  An average of 5.6 million job openings was reported each month in 2016.  The top month was July 2016 in which 5.973 million job openings were reported by U. S. employers.

By comparison, in 2009, during the depth of the Recession, only 2.4 million job openings were reported on average each month.  The lowest historical month for job openings was July 2009 in which only 2.2 million job openings were reported.

Trump-- The Jobs President?

Now we will see what Trump will do to the number of job openings.  Remember that announcements of a few hundred jobs saved or created here or there is really nothing in an economy that has been recording over 5 million job openings a month.  

How Many Jobs Has Trump Created or Lost? (February 2017 update)

How many NET jobs created or lost under Trump as of February 2017, during the Trump Presidency to date? How many private sector jobs have been lost or added during Trump's presidency?
 

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May 2017 numbers were released 
Friday morning, June 2nd.  
All MAY reports and info will be listed  HERE.

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February is the FIRST month of jobs attributed to Trump's Presidency.  Job numbers for any month are reported and counted as of the week of 12th.  Obama was still the President during the week of January 12th, which is why numbers for January 2017 fall in the Obama bucket.  Now, starting with February 2017, we get to see what effect Trump's policies will or won't have on jobs.

(Some people believe that additions or subtractions in jobs should be in the prior President's "bucket" for at least several months after a new President is inaugurated.  The reasoning for this is twofold:

• 1.  It takes several months for an incoming President's economic policies to take effect.
• 2.  The US Fiscal Year doesn't start until October 1st, meaning that all of the budgeting and almost all economic programs up to October 1st were developed and signed into law during the prior administration.  However, the economy is affected by apprehension, both good and bad, and an incoming administration often has leverage in how moneys appropriated by the outgoing administration are used.  Therefore, it is easiest to simply use the first full month that  a President is in office as a starting point for counting jobs.)

Let's remember that jobs tend to trend, and one or two months do not make a trend.  (Some people believe that we shouldn't count an incoming President's jobs numbers until the beginning of his first fiscal year in office, meaning starting in October, as the federal fiscal year goes from October 1st to September 30th.)  But starting with February will certainly give us a good enough trend as we move through the spring and summer.

As we move into the Trump years, let's remember that President Obama

 handed to President Trump the strongest economy in terms of jobs since the Clinton years.  We have: * 

• 1.  Record numbers of job openings.
• 2.  A record in consecutive months of increase in the number of private sector jobs (83 months).
• 3. Record in consecutive months of overall job growth.  (76 months).  
• 4. Lowest number of first-time claims for unemployment benefits since 1971.  
• 5.    A reduction in income inequality starting in 2014.
• 6.  An increase in inflation-adjusted weekly and hourly wages for "regular" workers.  
• 7.  A record-increase in inflation-adjusted household income starting in 2015.  
• 8.  An 3% INCREASE in manufacturing jobs in Obama's second term after a 27% DECREASE in manufacturing jobs under Bush II.  This was the largest one term increase in manufacturing jobs since Carter.
• 9.  A 19% increase in construction jobs in Obama's second term.  This was the largest one term increase in construction jobs since the Clinton years.
    
  
  Don't mess this up, President  Trump!  WE ARE WATCHING YOU!   
  
  *For those who don't believe these claims, I will post links and sources for all of these in the next few days.  

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February 2017 numbers were released Friday morning, March 10th.  All FEBRUARY reports and info will be listed  HERE.

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