BLS jobs report, economy added 199,000 jobs in December, UE rate falls to 3.9%

[Johnny2X2X]

This is an incredible jobs report! But be prepared for the media to paint it as negative because 400,000+ were expected.

Also, October and November were revised up by 102,000 and 39,000 jobs. Meaning in October we added a whopping 648,000 jobs and November a solid 249,000 jobs.

The UE rate is approaching record lows.

And wages are through the roof, average hourly wage rose 19 cents to $31.31 an hour, wages rose 4.7% the last year, the highest rate in several decades.

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

[Botany]

1. Biden and Harris are doing a great job

Last edited Fri Jan 7, 2022, 10:14 AM - Edit history (1)

Projected NY Times headline: Biden Struggles with low poll #s.

BTW Harris & Biden best back to back speeches ever and Joe Biden saved this too:

[underpants]

2. Record number of jobs added in 2021

- Joe Scarborough

[ProudMNDemocrat]

3. But that "What about inflation " crowd?

That is all the Republicans have to go on when it is quite obvious that the slowdown caused by COVID for 2 years has resulted in higher demand for goods snd services?

Some economics, people.

[Johnny2X2X]

4. Yeah, it's simple really

Global Supply chains were disrupted by Covid, so it costs more to stock supplies, simple as that. Built up demand further aggrevated this. It will pass eventually.

[Norbert]

5. Yeah, but the labor participation rate...

Full employment, here we are. Thank President Biden.

[uponit7771]

14. yep

[jmbar2]

6. Already seeing "disappointing numbers" spin

JFC - what do they expect at peak Omicron and the Christmas season! Still a stellar number given all the headwinds.

[Drunken Irishman]

8. Absolutely it is a bad jobs report.

Most expected 400,000 jobs created and earlier this week, ADP said 800,000 jobs were created in December. So to woefully come well short of either figure is not good. Clearly the economy is slowing again.

And regardless of why, if Biden doesn't get it figured out, he'll get the blame.

[Drunken Irishman]

7. Bad jobs report.

Economists expected at least 400,000 new jobs and the ADP report earlier this week actually put new jobs at 800,000 - so, the official report coming in 200,000 less than expected and 400,000 less than the ADP report is bad.

Job creation has clearly slowed the last few months. Biden better find out what's driving the slowdown or it absolutely is going to kill the party this November.

[Johnny2X2X]

9. 365,000 a month the last 3

That's incredible job growth.

Donald Trump averaged -62,600 jobs a month over his 4 years in office. Bill Clinton, the greatest jobs president ever averaged 256,000 jobs a month over his 2nd term.

When you're at 4% UE, 200,000 jobs added is stellar. Joe just had the best year for jobs growth in our nation's history. But they build up these stupid expectations of 450,000 jobs without context. Joe is shattering all of the job creation records and they're complaining he isn't shattering them even more.

[Drunken Irishman]

10. Not incredible job growth.

You're comparing apples to oranges. Since COVID hit, 10 million Americans have lost their jobs. We have not come close to refilling those jobs. Labor participation is lower today than in February, 2020, so the unemployment figure is irrelevant.

It was a bad jobs report. Even with the revising of the numbers the last two months, we're still coming in lower than needed and expected to make up the gains lost during 2020.

The economy is slowing and it does no one any good to bury their heads in the sand.

[Johnny2X2X]

11. That's simply not true

157.5M people were employed at the end of 2019, 156M people are employed now, we've gained almost all of the job losses from the recession back. And this is with record numbers of people retiring.

We added 6 Million jobs in 2021.

[uponit7771]

17. +1

[Drunken Irishman]

18. It absolutely is true.

A year ago, we had 10 million fewer jobs than at the start of the pandemic:

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/08/the-us-has-10-million-fewer-jobs-now-than-before-the-pandemic.html

22 million jobs were lost during the pandemic. Growth at the end of 2020 cut into that but there was still a significant hole to climb out of.

In 2021, 6.4 million jobs were created. That means we're still roughly 4 million short of pre-pandemic levels:




Job growth is going to need to be significantly higher than 200,000 each month in 2022 to erase that gap.

That's why 200,000 is a bad number. If every month had similar job growth as December, the US economy would have gained 2.4 million jobs. Still 1.2 million or so less than needed just to refill all the jobs lost during the pandemic. And that doesn't even account for popular growth.

[onenote]

20. We recovered 6 million lost jobs in 2021

And before that, from May 2020 to January 2021, more than 16 million jobs were recovered. Does that mean Trump was a job-creating genius? Of course not. But it does mean that context matters. Comparing 2020 to 2021 without considering the pandemic's impact on unemployment and the subsequent pace of recovery paints a very incomplete picture.

[onenote]

15. Good but hardly stellar

Pre-pandemic, January and February 2020, with unemployment at 3.5%, the number of jobs added averaged 245,000.

And you are right that context matters. The pandemic has skewed the numbers both up and down.

[Drunken Irishman]

21. It's not good, though.

We're still nearly 4 million jobs short of where we were pre-pandemic. 200,000 on average isn't going to cut it. We need far larger gains if we're going to reach pre-pandemic job creation, unfortunately.

At 200,000 on average a month, we're still over a million short of erasing the jobs lost in 2020 (at the end of 2020, we had 10 million fewer jobs, down from 20 million that were lost at the height of the pandemic).

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/08/the-us-has-10-million-fewer-jobs-now-than-before-the-pandemic.html

[uponit7771]

16. Economist job expectations no longer have any credibility, they've been off for years. A quarter

... average shows the Biden admin kicking ass where the outdated and non credible "expectation" report should start kicking dirt.

[Drunken Irishman]

19. The numbers are well short of what they need to be.

Regardless if you dismiss expectations, 200,000 isn't going to cut it. The US lost 20 million jobs at the height of the pandemic. Yet at this time last year, we still had 10 million fewer jobs than prior to the pandemic. In 2021, we erased that gap by 6.4 million but are still short by 3.6 million. Much of that gap was closed by some significant job reports (like when the economy added 850,000 jobs in June).

At 200,000 average, we won't make up that gap in 2022.

These next are not good. Especially when you factor in popular growth. The fact is, we're still nearly 4 million short of where we were prior to the pandemic.

[Cicada]

12. Private ADP version had 800,000 jobs added, both are samples prone to error

The fed reports have usually been adjusted upward this year after more data comes in. Covid is delaying state reporting. ADP and Govt always align after a few months, they both are based on samples so they both have sampling errors. But average a few months and they always match about exactly. So average ADP and Govt to get best guess.

[Emile]

13. When TFG was in the unemployment level was at great depression levels.

https://fortune.com/2021/01/11/us-economy-jobs-numbers-trump-compared-past-presidents-worst-record-since-hoover/

[onenote]

22. True, but context matters

Comparisons of unemployment rates are somewhat meaningless without taking into account what might be impacting job creation or loss. For example, the lowest unemployment rate in US history occurred in 1944 -- largely due to World War II -- not exactly something anyone would want to replicate. Job gains and losses over the past two years have been impacted by a unique event: the pandemic. Before it hit, the unemployment rate had fallen to its lowest in 50 years. After it hit, employment crashed, with well over 20 million jobs lost in just a couple of months. But then a recovery began -- quite quickly and then more steadily. By the end of 2020, more than half of the lost jobs had been recovered. This past year has seen a further recovery, but we're not back to where we were pre-pandemic yet, so I think spiking the football is a bit premature.