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Well, this is a bad employment report — across the board. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the economy created just 69,000 jobs in May -- the fewest in a year -- and the unemployment rate crept up to 8.2 percent.

A few takeaways:


Spring Slowdown. Once again, the jobs figures testify to a slowing of growth in the spring. But the gloomy data extend beyond the headline payroll jobs figure. The economy is growing and demand continues to rise. But that's not translating into more work or significantly higher wages. The average workweek for private sector sectors fell in May by .1 hours — i.e., six minutes. Manufacturing, which has been a pocket of strength, showed signs of weakness. The manufacturing workweek fell .3 hours to 40.5, and factory overtime fell sharply. Hourly earnings crept up a smidgen in May, and over the past year have risen just 1.7 percent.

Labor Force Rises. There's an odd wrinkle here. The unemployment rate is derived from the household survey, in which BLS calls people and asks them about their employment status. The rate is calculated by dividing the number of people estimated to be unemployed into the size of the labor force. When the labor force shrinks, the unemployment rate can fall even if the number of people who say they're working doesn't rise. But that's not what happened this month. In May, according to the BLS, the labor force actually grew by 635,000 — which means a lot of people who had been sitting on the sidelines jumped back in. The number of people employed, according to the Household survey, rose by 422,000 in the month.

The Conservative Recovery Continues. Europe isn't the only area where austerity and reduced government spending are impacting employment. Virtually every month for the past few years, the private sector has added jobs while the public sector (local, state and federal government) has cut jobs. That continued in May. The private sector added 82,000 payroll jobs in May while government cut 13,000 positions. Since February 2010, the private sector has added 4.27 million jobs, while the public sector has cut 1.028 million jobs since May 2010.

The Trend Isn't Your Friend. There was another way in which the May report reversed recent trends. Every month, when it reports the figures, BLS goes back and revises the figures it had reported for the prior two months. For much of this recovery, the trend has been for BLS to discover jobs that hadn't been originally reported and revise the prior months' totals higher. But not this month. In May, BLS revised the gains for the two previous months lower. March's figure, originally reported as a 120,000 gain, had been revised upward to 154,000 in April, was revised back down to 143,000. The April figure, originally reported as a gain of 115,000, was revised to a gain of only 77,000.

Labor Market Frustration Rising. Despite the general trend of more job openings and declining first-time unemployment claims, this report shows that the jobs market softened in May. In addition to reporting the headline unemployment rate, BLS publishes alternative measures of labor force frustration — e.g., rates that include workers who have given up, or who are working part-time but would prefer to work full-time. BLS compiles all such measures in the U-6. After falling for much of the past year, it rose in May — to 14.8 percent.

Jobs & The 2012 Election

As is always the case in an election year, voters have their eyes firm on the trend of that headline unemployment number. In the accompanying video, my Daily Ticker colleagues Aaron Task and Henry Blodget talk to Politico's Morning Money columnist and Wall Street reporter Ben White about the political implications of this grim payroll number.

After a decent start to the year, President Obama "cannot make the case clearly, at least at this point, that the economy is recovering strongly under his leadership and it opens the door wide for Mitt Romney to say, 'I've got a set of policies that could create faster job creation,'" says White who thinks it is going to be a "razor tight" election. "If [the unemployment number] stays where we are now, sort of bouncing around 100,000 or if we go back above, I think it is still a 50-50 race."

In a recent column, White does however note that the economies in most of the swing states are performing better than the national average (with the exception of Florida). But May's rise in the unemployment rate to 8.2% muddles this story and won't help Obama come election day, says White.


Daniel Gross is economics editor at Yahoo! Finance.
 

lons

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You expect me to read all that?


I'll break it down for you. It's been 3.5 years since Bush left. The jobs report just came out with job losses across the board. They've no one left to blame it on, but the administration that is in office now.

And they are depressed as Hell about it.
 

Jon88

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I'll break it down for you. It's been 3.5 years since Bush left. The jobs report just came out with job losses across the board. They've no one left to blame it on, but the administration that is in office now.

And they are depressed as Hell about it.

I never saw any of this hope and change that was promised.
 

Cythim

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I'll break it down for you. It's been 3.5 years since Bush left. The jobs report just came out with job losses across the board. They've no one left to blame it on, but the administration that is in office now.

And they are depressed as Hell about it.

Learn to read, there was a net gain of 69k jobs in May. Conservatives should actually be proud with the jobs report, we are seeing more private sector jobs and fewer gov't jobs.

The private sector added 82,000 payroll jobs in May while government cut 13,000 positions. Since February 2010, the private sector has added 4.27 million jobs, while the public sector has cut 1.028 million jobs since May 2010.
 

dbair1967

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I'll break it down for you. It's been 3.5 years since Bush left. The jobs report just came out with job losses across the board. They've no one left to blame it on, but the administration that is in office now.

dont worry, Obama can still blame Bush and he'll convince his retards in the press to continue buying into it
 

lons

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Learn to read, there was a net gain of 69k jobs in May. Conservatives should actually be proud with the jobs report, we are seeing more private sector jobs and fewer gov't jobs.

The private sector added 82,000 payroll jobs in May while government cut 13,000 positions. Since February 2010, the private sector has added 4.27 million jobs, while the public sector has cut 1.028 million jobs since May 2010.

Cool beans!!! You had to go back a full 2 years to reach 4 million jobs added. Heck, I can do that too!!

Since 1845 there have been 893 million jobs created! we're still at a net gain!!
 

Cythim

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Cool beans!!! You had to go back a full 2 years to reach 4 million jobs added. Heck, I can do that too!!

Since 1845 there have been 893 million jobs created! we're still at a net gain!!


You have selective reading, the numbers from 2010 are only to show the difference in private sector versus public sector jobs. The month of May alone saw 82k jobs added in the private sector. It isn't it huge number but it is a gain and not the "job losses across the board" that you said it was.
 

lons

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You have selective reading, the numbers from 2010 are only to show the difference in private sector versus public sector jobs. The month of May alone saw 82k jobs added in the private sector. It isn't it huge number but it is a gain and not the "job losses across the board" that you said it was.


Except the articles states 69,000 jobs in May were created. and Unemployment is back to 8.2%

/scratches head
 

Cythim

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Except the articles states 69,000 jobs in May were created. and Unemployment is back to 8.2%

/scratches head

Yeah, the article says 82k jobs gained in the private sector but 13k lost in the public sector. 82k - 13k = 69k, mkay? That is a net gain of 69k jobs in the last month, not "losses across the board" like you tried to suggest.

When it mentions unemployment it says it is back to 8.2% because more people are out looking for a job. There were 69k more people employed but there were also 635k more people looking for a job. The unemployment rate is a dynamic number that changes based on total people employed and total people looking to be employed. The unemployment rate has been unreliable for the last few years because both of those numbers have been changing frequently.
 

lons

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Yeah, the article says 82k jobs gained in the private sector but 13k lost in the public sector. 82k - 13k = 69k, mkay? That is a net gain of 69k jobs in the last month, not "losses across the board" like you tried to suggest.

When it mentions unemployment it says it is back to 8.2% because more people are out looking for a job. There were 69k more people employed but there were also 635k more people looking for a job. The unemployment rate is a dynamic number that changes based on total people employed and total people looking to be employed. The unemployment rate has been unreliable for the last few years because both of those numbers have been changing frequently.


It's still half of what Obama's own economists predicted. Thus the losses across the board. We've not seen this many unemployed since the 80's. And you want to be happy that you got me on it wasn't a net loss, but a net gain of half as many jobs as they thought they'd get, but has now started a downward trend for the last 3 weeks?

Ok, let me take a hit off your bong.
 

Cythim

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It's still half of what Obama's own economists predicted. Thus the losses across the board.

A failed prediction does not create a loss, and we all know economists are just guessing. If they were any good at predictions our economy wouldn't be in this mess. If I predict the Cowboys will score 40 points but they only score 30 there is no loss, just a failed prediction. Thus the only losses across the board are your losses across this one.

We've not seen this many unemployed since the 80's.

Incorrect, we have never seen this many unemployed. We almost reached 15 million unemployed, and probably did considering the 2.5% drop in participation rate as well. The most we had when your dear Reagan was in office was 11 million but that was the previous guy's fault not sweet old Ron Ron. More importantly, the total employed hasn't been this low (140 million) since way back in 2005!

And you want to be happy that you got me on it wasn't a net loss, but a net gain of half as many jobs as they thought they'd get, but has now started a downward trend for the last 3 weeks?

I don't want you to be happy about anything, except maybe the fact that we are gaining jobs without them being government jobs. I want you to accept the fact that you were wrong about losses across the board. I also want you to accept the fact that everyone in Washington is to blame, liberal, conservative, Democrat, Republican, left, right, teaparty, and everyone else. They all had a hand in it and are required to fix it. I am happy that we have stopped bleeding jobs and are on the road to recovery. It really didn't matter if McCain or Obama was elected, we would be in the exact same position we are at right now except you would be arguing how great we are doing instead of how terrible everything is.

Ok, let me take a hit off your bong.

I wish I could give you something to smoke that would raise you to my superior level of intelligence [I've probably left a dozen spelling and grammar errors] but there is no such substance. Just try harder to pay attention to what you are reading and maybe use a dictionary to look up those big words you don't understand. You can do it, I believe in you.
 

lons

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Cy, all you do is troll man. There was nothing about this jobs report that anyone should be happy about and in case you missed it. Economists have been predicting it for decades so saying they do now is sorta an empty statement. It's all betting on what the economists say. It was a loss as the administration was counting on the jobs to keep coming. It's been several months now of a stall and for the last month its been in decline with no net to catch them.


The difference in knowledge and being about to gather information is...

You seem to think everything is just fine and anyone with half a brain would look at this jobs report as a loss.

At no time did I say I blame a conservative or liberal for it. I do think what has everyone so down is that they just can't blame it on fucking Bush anymore.

If the only thing I had to hang my hat on was the it wasn't a loss of below 0, I think I'd just stop talking. Like you should.
 

superpunk

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Labor Force Rises. There's an odd wrinkle here. The unemployment rate is derived from the household survey, in which BLS calls people and asks them about their employment status. The rate is calculated by dividing the number of people estimated to be unemployed into the size of the labor force. When the labor force shrinks, the unemployment rate can fall even if the number of people who say they're working doesn't rise. But that's not what happened this month. In May, according to the BLS, the labor force actually grew by 635,000 — which means a lot of people who had been sitting on the sidelines jumped back in. The number of people employed, according to the Household survey, rose by 422,000 in the month.

Bravo, Obama.
 

jiggyfly

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It's still half of what Obama's own economists predicted. Thus the losses across the board. We've not seen this many unemployed since the 80's. And you want to be happy that you got me on it wasn't a net loss, but a net gain of half as many jobs as they thought they'd get, but has now started a downward trend for the last 3 weeks?

Ok, let me take a hit off your bong.

Once again Loud and wrong.lol
 

jiggyfly

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Cy, all you do is troll man. There was nothing about this jobs report that anyone should be happy about and in case you missed it. Economists have been predicting it for decades so saying they do now is sorta an empty statement. It's all betting on what the economists say. It was a loss as the administration was counting on the jobs to keep coming. It's been several months now of a stall and for the last month its been in decline with no net to catch them.


The difference in knowledge and being about to gather information is...

You seem to think everything is just fine and anyone with half a brain would look at this jobs report as a loss.

At no time did I say I blame a conservative or liberal for it. I do think what has everyone so down is that they just can't blame it on fucking Bush anymore.

If the only thing I had to hang my hat on was the it wasn't a loss of below 0, I think I'd just stop talking. Like you should.

And then you pull the troll card after you make false accusations of somebody of being happy with this report.

Nobody is happy, Cy just pointed out the fallacy of your post, there is plenty to be upset about with no need for the Hyperbole about "loses across the board" and the funny part is you were trying to summarize it for somebody else when you probably didn't even read it yourself.
 

Cythim

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Cy, all you do is troll man. There was nothing about this jobs report that anyone should be happy about and in case you missed it. Economists have been predicting it for decades so saying they do now is sorta an empty statement. It's all betting on what the economists say. It was a loss as the administration was counting on the jobs to keep coming. It's been several months now of a stall and for the last month its been in decline with no net to catch them.


The difference in knowledge and being about to gather information is...

You seem to think everything is just fine and anyone with half a brain would look at this jobs report as a loss.

At no time did I say I blame a conservative or liberal for it. I do think what has everyone so down is that they just can't blame it on fucking Bush anymore.

If the only thing I had to hang my hat on was the it wasn't a loss of below 0, I think I'd just stop talking. Like you should.

Troll, yes thanks. You like to pull that out every time you lose an argument with me. You need to learn what trolling is, what I am doing is having a discussion.

Economists have been predicting for decades, yes. Every month it is about how the economists missed the mark high or low, you never hear a report saying the economy did exactly what was predicted. There was still no loss.

While all of the half brained morons are looking at this as a loss those of us with a whole brain are seeing another month of gains as we trudge forward. I know things are not fine but I also understand that it could have gotten a lot worse and things are slowly turning for the better.

I don't care who they blame. The mark of a coward is laying blame on someone else, every politician is a coward as none of them will own up to their part in this mess. It happened and the only thing I care about is getting it fixed and making sure it does not happen again.
 
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