US jobs report shows lower
than expected hiring in December
By Tom Hall
7 January 2017
The December jobs report from the Bureau of
Labor Statistics (BLS) showed that the American economy added 156,000 jobs last
month, less than the 175,000 expected by economists.
The BLS’s breakdown of the figures showed that
by far the largest share of job growth was from the service industry, with
132,000 jobs added, especially in the healthcare and social assistance sector
which added 70,000 jobs.
Economists acknowledged the generally tepid
character of the report. PNC chief economist Stuart Hoffman called it “a
‘vanilla pudding’ jobs report that keeps the Fed on a gradual rate hiking
path.”
Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez went further,
releasing a statement declaring that “[t]he US economy again demonstrated its
strength in December.”
Manufacturing, while adding 17,000 jobs,
remained slightly below employment levels from the previous December. The
construction industry and mining and logging shed 3000 and 2000 jobs,
respectively.
Average hourly wages rose 0.4 percent in
December, or roughly 10 cents per hour compared to November. This meant a total
increase in nominal wages of 2.9 percent through all of 2016, the largest
annual wage increase since the end of the recession in 2009. Reports in the
press presented this as balancing out the weaker than expected job growth.
However, the increase in wages last year is
still well below the more than 3.5 percent annual wage growth that the Economic
Policy Institute (EPI) estimates would have to be sustained for several years
in order for American workers to recoup the wages they lost as a result of the
Great Recession. Annual wage growth remains far below the levels from before
the recession. In November 2007, the month before the official beginning of the
recession, year-on-year wage growth rate was 3.89 percent.
Significantly, year-on-year monthly wage growth
(according to figures from the EPI) during the recession was higher than at any point during
the recovery, and never fell below the 2.9 percent being hailed as a sign of a
strong jobs market today. This is consistent with the character of the
“recovery” itself, with a return to profits based on predominantly low wage,
part time or casual jobs, focused on lower-paying sectors such as the service
industry.
The labor force participation rate remains at
the near-historic lows which it has hovered around since the recession, rising
slightly from 62.6 percent in November to 62.7 percent in December. This is
largely driven by the millions of workers who, discouraged by poor job
prospects, have given up looking for work and have dropped out of the labor
force altogether.
The EPI estimated that there were 2.33 million
“missing workers,” in December, or people who were not employed but were not
seeking work due to “weak job opportunities” and are therefore not counted in
the official unemployment rate (which, driven by the slight increase in labor
force participation last month, rose slightly from 4.6 to 4.7 percent). If it
included these workers, the EPI noted, the unemployment rate would be 6.1
percent.
The structural shift in the labor market means
that the traditional statistics used to measure the jobs market mask a more
dire underlying reality. This was acknowledged by the head of the Gallup
polling agency in 2015 when he called the official unemployment rate a “Big
Lie” of contemporary American politics.
An alternate measure of joblessness compiled by
the BLS, referred to in the press as the “real unemployment rate,” which
includes those “marginally attached” to the labor force and those working part
time jobs involuntarily, was 9.2 percent last month.
The fact, promoted by Perez in his official
statement, that the American economy has had 75 consecutive months of job
increases belies the fact that the recession resulted in the steepest job
losses in decades. On top of this, the “recovery” of total employment figures
since the official end of the recession in June 2009 is by far the slowest on
record.
According to a report by the Center on Budget
and Policy Priorities, the American economy took more than six years to recover
all of the jobs lost as a result of the recession. The overwhelming majority of
the jobs that have been created since the recession have been in low wage
sectors such as the service industry.
In spite of the generally tepid character of the
report, the Federal Reserve is increasingly concerned that the labor market is
beginning to “tighten,” which would result in upward pressure on wages. The
U.S. central bank is determined to stop such a development.
While the Fed is currently committed to a policy
of a gradual rise in interest rates, a tightening jobs market could convince
them to accelerate interest rate rises to prevent rising wages. This was
acknowledged by the Fed following its Open Market Committee meeting last month,
when it declared, “Some participants noted that if the labor market appeared to
be tightening significantly more than expected, it might become necessary to
adjust the Committee’s communications about the expected path of the federal
funds rate, consistent with the possibility that a less gradual pace of
increases would become appropriate.”
OBAMA-CLINTONOMICS:
Build the La Raza Democrat Party base with open
borders, no ID to vote Democrat, no E-VERIFY and NO DAMNED LEGAL NEED TO APPLY.
"Republicans
should call for lower immigration to stop the Democrat voter recruitment.
But more importantly, all Americans should call for lower immigration in order
to offer a better opportunity of finding jobs for those millions of their
fellow Americans of all political persuasions who would like to work."
MILLIONS OF AMERICAN
JOBS HANDED OVER TO
ILLEGALS ALONG WITH BILLIONS IN WELFARE.... AND
THE PARTY
HAS JUST BEGUN!
THE DEMOCRAT PARTY
PLATFORM:
NO DAMNED LEGAL NEED
APPLY!
VIVA
LA RAZA FASCISM? THEN VOTE DEM!
"Republicans should
call for lower immigration to stop the Democrat voter recruitment. But
more importantly, all Americans should call for lower immigration in order to
offer a better opportunity of finding jobs for those millions of their fellow
Americans of all political persuasions who would like to work."
AMAZON MAKES JEFF BOZO A
BILLIONAIRE BY MUCKING OVER HIS WORKERS!
"Amazon has been able to capture an increasing share of the
retail market by exploiting its workforce through low wages, imposing high
productivity demands and implementing robotic automation."
AMERICA: NO LEGAL NEED APPLY
REPORT: The assault to finish off
the American middle-class is NOT over
“The report noted that many illegals don't have jobs or have
difficulty in landing good jobs because of local laws.”
“However, it identified several states that have begun easing
employment laws so that illegals can get a job.”
SOARING POVERTY IN AMERICA’S OPEN
BORDERS
TRUMPERNOMICS FOR THE SUPER RICH:
“In the US, the working class will confront a government unlike any
other in American history, which will continue and intensify a decades-long
social counterrevolution overseen by the Democrats and Republicans. The
incoming Trump administration is manned by billionaires, generals and arch
reactionaries. It is a government of, by and for the oligarchy, committed to
destroying every remaining gain won by workers over the past century.”
FIXING
AMERICA’S UNEMPLOYMENT CRISIS:
How
many jobs in your community are held by foreign born?
MILLIONS of JOBS and BILLIONS in
WELFARE and they commit most of the MURDERS
SANCTUARY CITIES AND STATES: AMERICA FALLS TO LA RAZA SUPREMACY!
“What we're seeing is our Congress and
national leadership dismantling our laws by not enforcing them.
Lawlessness becomes the norm, just like Third World corruption. Illegal aliens
now have more rights and privileges than Americans. If you are an illegal
alien, you can drive a car without a driver's license or insurance. You
may obtain medical care without paying. You may work without paying taxes.
Your children enjoy free education at the expense of
taxpaying Americans.”
AMERICA: One paycheck
and two illegals away from homelessness.
"The economists found that the pre-tax share of
national income received by the
bottom half of the US population has been cut nearly
in half since 1980, from 20
percent to 12 percent, while the income share of the
top one percent has nearly
doubled, from 12 percent to 20 percent."
SOARING POVERTY
IN AMERICA’S OPEN
BORDERS
OBAMA-CLINTONOMICS:
Build the La Raza Democrat Party base with open
borders, no ID to vote Democrat, no E-VERIFY and NO DAMNED LEGAL NEED TO APPLY.
"Republicans
should call for lower immigration to stop the Democrat voter recruitment.
But more importantly, all Americans should call for lower immigration in order
to offer a better opportunity of finding jobs for those millions of their
fellow Americans of all political persuasions who would like to work."
MILLIONS OF AMERICAN
JOBS HANDED OVER TO
ILLEGALS ALONG WITH BILLIONS IN WELFARE.... AND
THE PARTY HAS JUST BEGUN!
ILLEGALS ALONG WITH BILLIONS IN WELFARE.... AND
THE PARTY HAS JUST BEGUN!
THE DEMOCRAT PARTY
PLATFORM:
NO DAMNED LEGAL NEED
APPLY!
VIVA
LA RAZA FASCISM? THEN VOTE DEM!
"Republicans should
call for lower immigration to stop the Democrat voter recruitment. But
more importantly, all Americans should call for lower immigration in order to
offer a better opportunity of finding jobs for those millions of their fellow
Americans of all political persuasions who would like to work."
AMAZON MAKES JEFF BOZO A
BILLIONAIRE BY MUCKING OVER HIS WORKERS!
"Amazon has been able to capture an increasing share of the
retail market by exploiting its workforce through low wages, imposing high
productivity demands and implementing robotic automation."
AMERICA: NO LEGAL NEED APPLY
REPORT: The assault to finish off
the American middle-class is NOT over
“The report noted that many illegals don't have jobs or have
difficulty in landing good jobs because of local laws.”
“However, it identified several states that have begun easing
employment laws so that illegals can get a job.”
SOARING POVERTY IN AMERICA’S OPEN
BORDERS
TRUMPERNOMICS FOR THE SUPER RICH:
“In the US, the working class will confront a government unlike any
other in American history, which will continue and intensify a decades-long
social counterrevolution overseen by the Democrats and Republicans. The
incoming Trump administration is manned by billionaires, generals and arch
reactionaries. It is a government of, by and for the oligarchy, committed to
destroying every remaining gain won by workers over the past century.”
FIXING
AMERICA’S UNEMPLOYMENT CRISIS:
How
many jobs in your community are held by foreign born?
MILLIONS of JOBS and BILLIONS in
WELFARE and they commit most of the MURDERS
SANCTUARY CITIES AND STATES: AMERICA FALLS TO LA RAZA SUPREMACY!
“What we're seeing is our Congress and
national leadership dismantling our laws by not enforcing them.
Lawlessness becomes the norm, just like Third World corruption. Illegal aliens
now have more rights and privileges than Americans. If you are an illegal
alien, you can drive a car without a driver's license or insurance. You
may obtain medical care without paying. You may work without paying taxes.
Your children enjoy free education at the expense of
taxpaying Americans.”
AMERICA: One paycheck
and two illegals away from homelessness.
"The economists found that the pre-tax share of
national income received by the
bottom half of the US population has been cut nearly
in half since 1980, from 20
percent to 12 percent, while the income share of the
top one percent has nearly
doubled, from 12 percent to 20 percent."
SOARING POVERTY
IN AMERICA’S OPEN BORDERS
IN AMERICA’S OPEN BORDERS
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