Saturday, March 6, 2010

Employment with Federal Government Booming!

The Department of Labor released the February unemployment numbers on Friday 3/5 reporting the loss of 36,000 jobs. 
Buried in Table B-1 is the fact that the number of persons employed by the Federal Government (excluding the Post Office, which appears to be in a performance free-fall) increased in the last 28 days from 2,174,800 in Jan '10 to 2,190,900  in Feb '10 - an increase of 16,100 more Federal employees while the number of people of people PAYING their salaries decreased by 18,000.

Local governments cut back by 24,100 jobs in Feb; but state governments added 6,000 more government jobs.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid stuck his foot in his mouth (practice makes permanent) regarding the terrible jobs report:
Today is a big day in America.  Only, only 36,000 people lost their jobs today, which is really good.

Reid tried to pull his foot out of his mouth on Twitter:
Going from 750K job losses to 36K is a step in the right direction but I don't pretend for a minute that it's enough. Much work still to do.
Other Highlights from the February Jobs Report:
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* The number of Americans in the Civilian Work Force (CWF) grew by 342,000 in January to 153,512,000.  The number of employed Americans grew by only 308,000...a difference of (34,000).
* The number of people employed from the CWF in January 2009 (when BHO was inaugurated) was 142,271,000.  In Feb 2009, that number is 138,621,000 - a decrease of 3,650,000.
* 2.5 million people were not considered "unemployed" by the DoL data because "they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey"
* The number of people identified as being in the Civilian Work Force is 889,000 lower than it was 12 months ago.  For the past 8 months, the number of persons recognized by the DoL in the Civilian Work Force was lower than it was 12 months earlier.  
* Before BHO was inaugurated, the percentage of months that saw a reported Civilian Work Force lower than what it was 12 months earlier was 3.3% since 1948 (24 times in 721 periods). Under BHO? 61%.  Is the country not growing in population under Obama?  Or, is Obama's DoL continuing to cook the books?
* To break this string of 12-month reductions in the Civilian Work Force, we would need to see a reported CWF of 154,164,000 in March - a surge of 652,000 persons.  Assuming this implausible scenario, and assuming no jobs added or lost (being kind), we will see an unemployment rate of 10.1%.  To keep the number under 10%, DoL will need to reduce the denominator by reporting a number that reflects in this growing country, the number of people in the Civilian Work Force is, again, smaller than what it was 12 months ago.
* The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) remained around 6.1 million... 4/10 unemployed persons have been unemployed over 27 weeks.
* The number of involuntary part time workers increased from 8.3 million to 8.8 million in February.
* Construction employment fell 64,000 in February; Information industry down 18,000; manufacturing unchanged; retail trade employment unchanged.


References / Related News




Harry Reid: Only 36,000 Lost Their Jobs today

What was the MSM saying a year ago about jobs?

February's Jobs Report: What You Need to Know About the Big Jump in Unemployment, US News & World Report, March 6, 2009 

Is it all bad news? Possibly not. This morning's report suggests employers may have done their most aggressive payroll cutting at the end of last year. After losing 681,000 jobs in December, the losses were smaller in January and again in February. The differences were marginal, but they could signify that the worst is behind us.