The Real Unemployment Rate For January 8th

Once again, we've seen a lot of disparity between the ADP private sector jobs report. ADP reported a blowout number (250,000) jobs being added to only to be brought back to a more humble government report showing 100k+ fewer jobs being added all in (148,000). 

History has consistently demonstrated that after revisions the ADP Report tends to be slightly more accurate and consistent - which would suggest that we'll likely see future upward revisions to the government number in future months. That being said, there was a bunch of decent info within the report.   

  • Headline unemployment rate 4.1percent (flat with last month to maintain the lowest unemployment rate in 17 years)  

  • Positive and negative revisions for prior month jobs reporting 

  • Lowest unemployment rate for African Americans in the history of the BLS employment report! 

Top industries for hiring:   

  • #1 Healthcare (added 31,000 jobs)  

  • #2 Construction (added 30,000 jobs)   

  • #3 tied Manufacturing/Food service (added 25,000 jobs)  

We have an absolutely incredible manufacturing story continuing to play out. After leading in job growth two months ago, manufacturing continues to be a top three job producer. In a quick peak at 20 years of data on manufacturing I couldn't find a similar three month period. Any questions about the Trump resurgence in manufacturing? Now for the real unemployment rate once underemployed and long-term unemployed people are accounted for.  

  • Actual: 8.1 percent down from 9.1 percent (year over year improvement of 11 percent)  

So here are three relevant points:     

1. When the long-term unemployed & marginally employed are factored in - the real unemployment remains nearly double the base reported rate    

2. 1.5 million are long-term unemployed, 4.9 million are underemployed (part-time seeking full-time work) & 1.6 million are marginally attached to the workforce  

3. The labor participation rate remained at 62.7 percent   

In part two we'll take a look at the demographics of the unemployed...


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