The fact is, employment fell by 190,000 according to the Household Survey and another 131,000 people dropped out of the labor force last month or the unemployment would have been even higher. Fewer people (131,000 to be precise) wanted a lob and looked for jobs in April than in March. The Obama administration as well as mainstream media wants to play job numbers both ways, that is to say they want to use the Household Survey when it suits their purpose and the Establishment Survey otherwise. Regardless, close scrutiny of the details in the report shows the headline numbers were far worse than they looked. I commented on that in my Friday post BLS Jobs Report: Nonfarm Payroll Headline Number Looks Good, Beneath the Surface, Awful where I said ... In the last year, the civilian population rose by 1,817,000. Yet the labor force dropped by 1,099,000. Those not in the labor force rose by 2,916,000. In January alone, a whopping 319,000 people dropped out of the workforce. In February another 87,000 people dropped out of the labor force. In March 11,000 people dropped out of the labor force. In April, 131,000 dropped out of the labor force. The 4-month total for 2011 is 548,000 people dropped out of the labor force.
No comments:
Post a Comment