In its monthly jobs report released Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics calculated that the slower job growth trend that began in 2015 has continued for the third straight year. This means that despite Donald Trump’s boast of his tremendous job creation achievements, President Obama did better in that department in six of his eight years in office. And his first two years were captive to the disastrous Great Recession, which started a year before he took office in January 2009.
By the bureau’s calculation, the economy generated 228,000 seasonally adjusted new jobs in November. Of those jobs, 221,000 were created in the private sector and 7,000 in the public sector. The “headline rate” of unemployment remained unchanged at 4.1 percent.
The bureau revises its job growth-or-loss estimates for the previous two months to account for more complete data available now that weren’t available when those monthly reports were originally released. October’s numbers were thus revised from 261,000 to 244,000 and September’s from 18,000 to 38,000.
Wages barely budged. The average wage for all workers rose 5 cents an hour. Compared with November 2016, the average year-over-year gain was 64 cents, a 2.5 percent rise against an annual inflation rate of 2.04 percent. Just slightly better than treading water. Here is Ben Casselman:
The slow pace of wage growth has been a mystery in recent months. The increase in average hourly earnings is barely enough to keep up with inflation.
Most economists expect wage growth to pick up as the unemployment rate falls. Other measures of earnings have already shown modestly faster gains, and there are signs that businesses are feeling pressure to raise pay. For the first time in six years, chief executives surveyed by the Business Roundtable, a coalition of big corporations, reported that labor expenses were their biggest cost pressure in the fourth quarter.
Both full-time and part-time positions are included in the bureau’s surveys. A person who has worked a single hour a week during the survey period is counted as employed. The survey period ends around the 12th of each month, so the November report released today covers the last half of October and the first half of November, not November alone.
The bureau labels the headline rate of unemployment as U3. At 4.1 percent, it’s the lowest rate in 16 years. In the past quarter century, the lowest the rate reached was 3.8 percent in April 2000. Before that, the lowest was December 1969, when it was 3.5 percent.
Besides U3, the bureau calculates unemployment for groups other than those simply looking for a job. One of the most observed categories is labeled U6. It is the most inclusive measure of “labor underutilitization” and covers both unemployment and underemployment. In November, U6 rose 0.1 point to 8 percent after falling 0.4 points to 7.9 percent in October. Its pre-recession low was 8 percent in March 2007, but it was lower than that earlier in the 2000s, reaching 6.9 percent in mid-2001. The U6 count covers a number of categories, one of those being part-time workers who want full-time positions but cannot get them.
The bureau estimates the number of jobs each through an analysis of the Current Employment Survey of 147,000 business establishments. The unemployment rate is calculated from the Current Population Survey of 60,000 households. Formulas are applied to each month’s tally—seasonal adjustments—to smooth out the considerable peaks and valleys of job count numbers as the year progresses.
Unemployment rates differ by race and sex. [Percentage in brackets is for October]. For U3: Adult men: 3.7 percent [3.8]; Adult women: 3.7 percent [3.6 ]; Whites: 3.6 percent [3.5] ; Blacks: 7.3 percent [7.5]; 3.0 Asians: percent [3.1]; Hispanics: 4.7 percent [4.8]; American Indians: (not counted monthly).
Between February 2008 and December 2009, the economy shed 8.8 million jobs. Since the Great Recession officially ended in June 2009, the economy has registered a net gain of 12.75 million new jobs.
The civilian workforce rose by 148,000 in November after rising by 765,000 in October. The labor force participation rate remained unchanged at 62.7 percent, and the employment-population ratio fell 0.1 point to 60.1 percent.
Additional details from the report:
• Average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees rose 5 cents an hour to $22.24 in November, after falling 1 cent an hour in October.
• Average work week for all employees on non-farm payrolls rose 0.1 in November to 34.5 hours.
• Average hourly earnings for all employees on private non-farm payrolls rose 5 cents an hour in November to $26.55.
• The manufacturing work week in November remained unchanged at 40.9 hours.
November Job Gains and Losses for selected categories:
- Professional services: 46,000
- Temporary help services: 18,300
- Transportation & warehousing: 10,500
- Financial activities: 8,000
- Leisure & hospitality: 14,000
- Information: -4,000
- Education and health services: 54,000
- Health care & social assistance: 40,500
- Retail trade: 18,700
- Construction: 24,000
- Manufacturing: 31,000
- Mining and Logging: 7,000
Here's what the seasonally adjusted job growth numbers have looked like in the previous 10 years compared with this November’s gain of 228,000 jobs.
November 2007: 114,000
November 2008: -766,000
November 2009: -2,000
November 2010: 119,000
November 2011: 141,000
November 2012: 132,000
November 2013: 258,000
November 2014: 312,000
November 2015: 272,000
November 2016: 164,000