Inside The January BLS Jobs Report

Each item below is suffixed with (H) if it is from the Household Survey, (E) if it is from the Establishment Survey, and (B) if it is from both.

– Nominal Nonfarm jobs was +157,000. (E). The two previous months’ gains were revised to +196,000 (December) and +247,000 (November). Those had been 141,000 and 138,000. That is a gain (for November and December) of 127,000 from the previous report making the net gain in jobs since the last report 284,000.

– Real (population adjusted) job growth in January was 87,000.

– the Unemployment Rate was 7.927% up from 7.849% in December 2012 (B)

– Average hourly earnings was $23.78 up from $23.74 in December 2012 (E)

– Average work week was 34.4 hours the same as December 2012 (E)

– Private jobs were +166,000. Government jobs were -9,000 (E)

-Good producing jobs were +59,000. The two previous months were revised to +44,000 and +43,000. (E)

-The size of the civilian labor force rose from 155,511,000 to 155,654,000 an increase of 143,000. (H)

It should be noted here that BLS has just started using new Census Bureau methodology in calculating the estimated population in the Household Survey.

-The labor participation rate (percent of adult noninstitutionalized population who are part of the labor force) was flat at 63.6%. It was 63.7% a year ago. (H) This, not the unemployment rate, is the number which should get everyone’s attention.

– the size of the civilian noninstitutional adult population increased by 313,000 in January to 244,636,000 (H). With a labor participation rate of 63.6% 199,100 more jobs were necessary to keep pace with population growth. We had 87,000 more jobs added than that including the increases from November and December. (H) The Employment/Population ratio was 58.6% the same as the past month.

The civilian noninstitutional population is 2,364,000 (H) more that 12 months ago. With a labor participation rate of 63.6% we require 1,503,000 more jobs in the past 12 months to keep pace with population growth. We had 1,714,000 more folks working. The increase in real (population adjusted) jobs in the past year is 211,000.

According to the 4 week moving average of Initial Jobless Claims, 1,408,000 people lost their jobs in the last 4 weeks. That normalizes to 1,525,000 lost jobs in a calendar month (there are about 13 4-week periods in a 12 month year.) This is down from the previous month’s 1,560.000 jobs lost/month.

In January 2013 BLS measured 4 sets of people entering or leaving the jobs market:

– Job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs was 6,637,000 up 229,000 from December’s Job Losers and down 655,000 from January 2012. (H)

– Job leavers was 981,000. This includes anyone who retired or voluntarily left working. This down 2,000 from previous month and up 49,000 from January 2012. (H)

-Reentrants was 3,515,000. Reentrants are previously employed people who were looking for a job and found one. This was -72,000 from previous month and +214,000 from January 2012.(H)

-New entrants were 1,287,000. These are people who never worked before and who are entering the labor force for the first time. This was -4,000 from previous month and +29,000 from January 2012.

The presentation of the total change in jobs is like looking at the final score of a game. The details tell the story:

– 284,000 more people are working

– 143,000 more people are in the civilian labor force

– 229,000 more people lost their jobs

– 2,000 fewer people left their jobs

– 72,000 fewer reentrants obtained jobs.

Looking at this data serves as a reminder that the Employment Situation Report is a good bit more than the two numbers (jobs change and Unemployment rate) which are presented each month.

Real jobs growth remains soft. The health of the economy is best measured by the percentage of the adult noninstitutionalized civilian population who are working.
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Reference:
– Full January Jobs Report

– Awesome jobs report CHART FEST – by FloatingPath