Jobs Report Cheat Sheet
The Labor Department released the February jobs report and the results were pretty good, though not as great as you would think at first blush.
Here are the general trends that you need to know about (this will be helpful at all weekend social events!):
- The unemployment rate, the broad unemployment rate, the number of unemployed and the number of long-term unemployed are all declining, which is good.
- The average number of jobs created in January and February was 127,500 per month. It's probably best to take an average, because January (revised up to +63,000 jobs from +36,000) was a bit of an anomaly due to severe weather.
- The economy needs to create about 125,000 jobs a month just to keep pace with new entrants to the work force, so let's not go crazy over 127,500 per month.
- Local governments axed 30,000 people last month, a trend that is likely to continue as states and municipalities try to balance budgets
- 7.5 million jobs vanished during the recession
For those who need more details, here's additional data from the report:
- February Non-Farm Jobs: +192,000 (Total payroll employment has grown by 1.3 million, or an average of 106,000 per month since February, 2010)
- January Non-Farm Jobs: +63,000 (revised up from +36,000)
- December Non-Farm Jobs: +152,000 (revised up from +121,000)
- Unemployment Rate: 8.9 percent, from 9.0 percent in January
- Under-Employment Rate (marginally attached, part-time): 15.9 percent, down from 16.1 percent (high was 17.4 percent in October 2009)
- Unemployed persons: 13.7 million, from 13.9 million
- Long-term unemployed (jobless for 27 weeks and over): 6 million, down from 6.2 million (peak was 6.8 million in May 2010)
- Part-timers (hours cut for economic reasons): 8.3 from 8.5 million
- Average Hourly Earnings: +1 cent to $22.87 (Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have increased by 1.7 percent)
- Average Workweek: 34.2 hours (unchanged)
- Temporary help services: +15,500
- Retail: -8,100
- Health care: +34,000 (Over the prior 12 months, +260,000 jobs, or an average of 22,000 jobs per month)
- Government: -30K (all at the state and local level, fourth consecutive month of job losses. 377,000 total government jobs lost since peak in September 2008, which might make deficit hawks happy.)
- Construction: +33,000 (from -32,000)
- Manufacturing: +33,000 (195,000 jobs since December 2009)
