36k Jobs Lost In Feb, Involuntary Part-Timers Up 500k, 9.7% Unemployment. 8.4m Jobs Lost Since Recession Began. (CHARTS)

The Bureau of Labor Statistics non-farm payroll report showed that the economy lost 36,000 private sector jobs in February. January was revised from -20k to -26k jobs lost and December was revised from -150k to -109k jobs lost. This means 25 of the last 26 months have shown losses, putting the job loss toll since the recession began in December 2007 at 8.4 million. In 2009, 4.8m jobs were lost. BLS also reported that 14.8 million people are unemployed. This is a 9.7% unemployment rate, up 4.8% since the recession began in December 2007. See charts below.

Additionally there are now 8.8 million people who would like to work full time but are working part time because their hours have been cut or they can’t find full-time jobs. This forced-into-part-time-work category is up 4.1m million since January 2008, and increased by 500k this month, offsetting a big drop in January. January’s drop from 9.2m to 8.3m was the first improvement in nine months. This is the fine print of the jobs report—the headline job loss and unemployment statistics show that these 8.8 million people are employed and therefore not in the job loss category, but because of their job status these 8.8 million workers aren’t likely to be consuming at normal levels. Markets are interpreting today’s report as positive—stocks are rallying, bonds are selling off, and rates are higher—but this statistic is mostly undiscussed in market coverage.
CHART 1: MONTHLY JOB GAIN/LOSS JANUARY 2008 TO FEBRUARY 2010