Another bad jobs report...

[qabbaan]

"the private sector is doing fine"

June jobs swoon: America’s labor market depression continues
James Pethokoukis | July 6, 2012, 9:31 am

This was not the employment report either the American worker or the
Obama campaign wanted to see right now. The Labor Department said
the U.S. economy created just 80,000 jobs in June, less than the
90,000 economists had been forecasting. And private-sector job growth
was just 84,000, down sharply from 105,000 in May. Not doing fine.

The unemployment rate stayed at a lofty 8.2%.

As a research note from RDQ economics put it: "The good news is that
employment growth is not slowing further but there is no sign of it
picking up either. At this pace, job creation is not fast enough
to lower the unemployment rate with the labor force growing at close
to 150,000 per month on average." Shorter: Stagnation Nation

This continues to be the longest streak - 41 months - of unemployment
of 8% or higher since the Great Depression. And recall that back in
2009, Team Obama predicted that if Congress passed its $800 billion
stimulus plan, the unemployment rate would be around 5.6% today.

Just 75,000 jobs were created, on average, per month in the second
quarter vs. 226,000 in the first quarter. And for the year, monthly
job creation has averaged just 150,000 vs. 153,000 last year. Both
numbers are extremely weak.

But those top-line numbers actually overstate the health of the labor market.

- If the size of the U.S. labor force as a share of the total
population was the same as it was when Barack Obama took office—65.7%
then vs. 63.8% today—the U-3 unemployment rate would be 10.9%. Even if
you take into account that the LFP should be declining as America
ages, the unemployment rate would be 10.5%.

- The broader U-6 unemployment rate, which includes “all persons
marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time
for economic reasons,” is 14.9%, up a bit from May.

- The average duration of unemployment ticked up to 39.9 weeks.

- It will take 219,000 net new jobs a month for unemployment rate to
be below 8% on Election Day if current participation rate holds
steady.

- Job growth during the three-year Obama recovery has averaged just
75,000 a month for a total of 2.7 million. During the first three
years of the Reagan Recovery, job growth averaged 273,000 a month for
a total of 9.8 million. If you adjust for the larger U.S. population
today, the Reagan Recovery averaged 360,000 jobs a month for a
three-year total of 13 million jobs.

- The U.S. work force remains shrunken with just 58.6% employed:


None of this should be surprising. The economy grew a bit less than 2%
last year, and we averaged about 150,000 new jobs a month. We are
growing a bit less than 2% this year, and job growth is averaging
about 150,000 jobs a month. And there are few signs the rest of the
year will be any better. And given a) how the eurocrisis is AGAIN
flaring up, and b) China continues to slow, it sure seems like 2%
growth and 8% unemployment is a best-case scenario with plenty of
downside risk — for the economy and the Obama campaign.

James Pethokoukis is a columnist and blogger at the American
Enterprise Institute. Previously, he was the Washington columnist for
Reuters Breakingviews, the opinion and commentary wing of Thomson
Reuters.

Pethokoukis was the business editor and economics columnist for U.S.
News & World Report from 1997 to 2008. He has written for many
publications, including The New York Times, The Weekly Standard,
Commentary, National Review, The Washington Examiner, USA Today and
Investor’s Business Daily.

Pethokoukis is an official CNBC contributor. In addition, he has
appeared numerous times on MSNBC, Fox News Channel, Fox Business
Network, The McLaughlin Group, CNN and Nightly Business Report on PBS.
A graduate of Northwestern University and the Medill School of
Journalism, Pethokoukis is a 2002 Jeopardy! Champion.

[mlyonsd]

I think the worst news is the manufacturing report that came out earlier in the week. Three year low or something like that. Not good.

[Donger]

Forward. Hope and Change.

[RNR]

That damn Bush!

[Donger]

[blaise]

This is great news, without Obama we would have lost like 20,000,000 jobs. So, the net is +20,080,000.

[KC native]

Originally Posted by qabbaan

"the private sector is doing fine"

Corporate profits are doing great and have been for quite some time now. Workers are getting squeezed. Color me not surprised that the nuance escapes the op.

[HonestChieffan]

President Obama said at a campaign event on Friday that the June jobs report shows the economy has taken “a step in the right direction.”

The report showed unemployment remained unchanged in June at 8.2 percent and the economy added 80,000 jobs.

“That overall means that businesses have creatd 4.4 million jobs over the past 28 months,” Obama said at a rally in Poland, Ohio. “That’s a step in the right direction. . . But we can’t be satisfied because our goal was never to keep on working to get back to where we were in 2007.”

[qabbaan]

Originally Posted by HonestChieffan

President Obama said at a campaign event on Friday that the June jobs report shows the economy has taken “a step in the right direction.”

The report showed unemployment remained unchanged in June at 8.2 percent and the economy added 80,000 jobs.

“That overall means that businesses have creatd 4.4 million jobs over the past 28 months,” Obama said at a rally in Poland, Ohio. “That’s a step in the right direction. . . But we can’t be satisfied because our goal was never to keep on working to get back to where we were in 2007.”

Could he be more dishonest? Acting like the jobs picture is improving while only giving jobs added numbers and not jobs lost... It's like saying the company is profitable because revenue is steady. It's lying by omission.

[La literatura]

Originally Posted by mlyonsd

I think the worst news is the manufacturing report that came out earlier in the week. Three year low or something like that. Not good.

Not good at all. I think this is pretty much the death knell of the Obama Administration.

[KC native]

Originally Posted by qabbaan

Could he be more dishonest? Acting like the jobs picture is improving while only giving jobs added numbers and not jobs lost... It's like saying the company is profitable because revenue is steady. It's lying by omission.

Could you be more of a dumbass? The monthly number is a net number. http://bls.gov

[vailpass]

Originally Posted by mlyonsd

I think the worst news is the manufacturing report that came out earlier in the week. Three year low or something like that. Not good.

Spot on. Dire news. Rubber meets road there.

[HonestChieffan]

And in spite of KCNitwits attempts to demonstrate any understanding, the WhiteHouse release cautioned....

As the Administration stresses every month, the monthly employment and unemployment figures can be volatile, and employment estimates can be subject to substantial revision. Therefore, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report and it is informative to consider each report in the context of other data that are becoming available.


If past performance demonstrates anything, in a month or two late on a Friday, they will revise the numbers down.

[Pawnmower]

Originally Posted by mlyonsd

I think the worst news is the manufacturing report that came out earlier in the week. Three year low or something like that. Not good.

Yah, that was not good at all.

[LiveSteam]

But But But!