US / The latest job report is badly received

Here is an overview of the numerous comments on the latest job report even if the report concludes on the lowest the unemployment rate since November 2008. This drop was mainly due to a decrease to 63.2% of participation rate as the employment to population ratio declined to 58.6%.

‘The drop in the main unemployment rate was driven almost totally by negative factors. The number of people employed fell by about 115,000. The only reason the rate declined is that the overall labor force dropped by a larger 312,000, a possible sign of discouraged long-term jobless dropping out’ writes the Wall Street Journal. Indeed, ‘labor-force participation hits 35-year low’ titles Bloomberg.

‘Sorry, but it’s clear that the us job market is dead in the water, writes Business Insider.

On the top of that, employment figures for June and July were revised lower, bringing down the combined gains in June and July by 74,000 compared with the previous published levels.

‘July’s job gains were just 104,000, the fewest in more than a year’ The Big Story notes.

‘Private employment, which exclude government agencies, rose 152,000 after a revised gain of 127,000 in July that was weaker than first reported. Private payrolls were projected to rise by 180,000, the survey showed’  Bloomberg writes.

The US Jobs Growth is a “mirage”, ‘Growth in part-time jobs has been the main contributor in overall employment increases since the start of 2013’ Guggenheim reports adding ‘Over the past seven months, the average monthly growth in full-time jobs has been 32,000, while the average number of new part-time jobs was 104,000. After falling from the recession peak of 20 percent, the share of total jobs which are part-time has recently rebounded to 19.6 percent.’

‘Many Fed officials want to start reducing their bond purchases to acknowledge the decline in unemployment,’ says the Wall Street Journal ‘but they are also cautious because other labor market measures show persistent weakness — such as the falling share of Americans holding or seeking jobs’ he adds.

‘For young men the (employment) ratio was 81.7% in August, down from 82.1% in July’ observes Market Watch, adding ‘during the recession, young adults facing a terrible job market moved in with their parents, and many 25- to 34-year olds are still there’.

‘Millennial Unemployment is Up to 11.8%’ reports Policymic.

‘Hugely elevated levels of long-term unemployment remain one of the worst and most persistent scars from the Great Recession, as underscored yet again in the mediocre August jobs report. All in all, about 4.3 million Americans have been out of work for six months or more’ writes Annie Lowrey in the New York Times.

Some graphs from Calculated Risk.

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