It’s another “find the problematic easter egg if you can” report. No easter eggs.
And most importantly: We added another 8,400 people working in my favorite new easter egg, the Couriers and Messengers industry 
.
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I’m still trying to wrap my head around
400,000 people left
plus 177,000 added
equals 577,000.
I mean . . . wow.
Does that mean what it seems to mean?
I haven’t dug deep into the report (except to check Couriers!) - Which figures are you referencing there?
(but the number of short-term unemployed declined by exactly the same number of jobs added. Which is a fun fact)
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Top line was +177,000 as reported.
Table A-7 is my favorite
(They report that one differently. Unlike the others to get a M-o-M comparison ya gotta dig a bit into the historical data )
Anyway Table A-7reads
31,815 - 32,225k = -410k
Household employment was +436. I don’t have time to download the A7 tables but it appears - with wide deviations - that a +426 combined with a minus 410 foreign born = +836 native born, if that’s what you were referencing.
What I am thinking
(and the number seems too big to be right so I’m not shouting it yet)
177,000 + 410,000 = 587,000
400,000 almost never happens and is considered and unsustainable spike
.
.
.
.
For scale
Post-pandemic
Pre-Pandemic
If I’m understanding correctly, you’re mixing data from the establishment survey and the household survey. This gets pretty messy pretty fast…
(I’m also working fast and loose because I’m also… working:) )
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Yes that is what I am doing and I realize that needs to be done with a degree of care.
Still,
past reports of “plus 120k” or “plus 90k” always occurred when the # iof foreign-born workers was growing 100k a month.
This time (“plus 177k”) occurred when the number of foreign-born workers dropped and dropped a lot. Even though we cannot just add them, the context of one is not the same as the context of the other.
It’s an intriguing observation (even mores than couriers:) )
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How about this?
Message to this year’s graduates:
“You are graduating into one of the strongest short-term job markets in US history. If you don’t get a good job right out of school, it’s your fault and you suck.”
CNBC on the April job report:
“Nonfarm payrolls… a Greater 177,000. We were expecting… 133,000.”
True, but with the exception of the pandemic early months it’s been a sellers market for labor since at least 2018. There has been one or less unemployed person per job opening for that entire stretch (again, 2020 excluded for obvious reasons)
Hmm
If it’s a seller’s market for labor shouldn’t incomes be rising?
(Sell labor for more than you used to.)
The green line below is 2018 to present (date you mentioned).
It looks like no matter how far we stretch it out it will never ever ever meet or cross the other lines.
Was 2018–present good for jobs?
Well, the slope of the green line is positive but . . .
It’s not particularly steep, and
easy to find at least 3 extended periods that were better.
Real hourly total comp up about 8% in the period. Record low levels of unemployment. Historically low levels of unemployed per opening. Yes, I’d say it’s been a good labor mallet for graduates for many years.
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Total compensation???
I think that’s when medical expenses go up a lot, but your employer pays them so you say
*"I have the same stuff as before. *
*My income is stagnant, *
but man my employer is paying through teeth for my benefits so I call that a win!"
Yes, total compensation. Real compensation. Inflation adjusted. And yes, medical insurance is a benefit.
real hourly wages are up 7%. It’s not all other comps. The past decade has been a very good market for labor supply.
Good compared to what?
I still happen to think a lot of it ahs been smoke-and-mirrors
kicking the can down the road etc. but even if we set that aside
If I wanted to make the past decade look good I can think of only two ways.
1
I could compare it to recessions and say "it’s been better than a recession
or 2
The most positive thing I could possibly say is
“It has been no better and no worse the rest of the technology era.”
(all three green arrows have the same slope.)
