"308,000 new jobs" A figure like that has a lot of sides and a lot of angles. As a one-month net change, it's impressive ... though average work week is down a tick, total hours worked are down, and nonsupervisory earnings are down a penny.
Also impressive are the most recently adjusted 6-month results ... but the same BLS release announces employment down 268,000, unemployment up 55,000, and an extra 602,000 working-age civilians left outside the labor force in the past two month interval.
For yet another angle, we'll review a full year's net change in major employment stix. And while we're slogging through the numbers, this is a good place to dispose of the oft-cited but erroneous "150,000 new jobs a month required to keep pace with population growth".
From the current
BLS situation report, Household Survey data,
Table A-1, net changes for March 2003 to March 2004,
not seasonally adjusted. (Yes, this is methodologically impure, but there's no perfect prism.)
Eligible population: +2,233,000.
March 2003 base [civilian, noninstitutional, age 16 and up] was 220,317,000, so pop grew 1.01% over the year, perfectly consistent with recognized long-term trend. That's a compound monthly growth rate of 0.084%, suggesting a current monthly growth of 187,000.
Labor force ["employed" plus "unemployed"]: +724,000
That's 0.50% growth over March 2003 base of 145,801,000 ... half the growth rate of potentially employable population.
Corresponding population "not in work force": +1,509,000
On a base of 74,516,000, that's 2.03% annual growth ... double the base pop growth rate.
Employment: +908,000
That's over a base of 136,783,000 [The corresponding net change from the more dependable Establishment Survey data is +685,000.]
Unemployment: -184,000.
So far so good ... but not far enough or good enough.
What if "labor force" grew at the same natural rate as the corresponding employable demographic? Labor force would have increased by 1,478,000. With the same 908,000 net new hires, unemployment would have been up 570,000 instead of down 184,000.
It's too soon to conclude we're out of the woods. In fact, it's too soon to conclude we're not just wandering in circles.
Now, about those "150,000" new jobs per month to keep pace with working-age population growth. WRONG NUMBER. ("80,000", also widely cited a while back, is also wrong.)
At a 1.01% annually, eligible working age population grows by 187,000 people very month. If you want 100% employment for "new pop", that's your number ... but that's silly.
To grow jobs as fast as the labor force grows, you want 124,000 jobs/month.
To keep "new pop" employed in the same proportions as "old pop" (62%), your number is 116,000 new jobs/month.
To maintain normal growth over Bush's first 38 months in office, we should have seen 4.5 million new jobs. Combine that with the 2 million jobs lost so far, and a couple million jobs we "bought" on the national line of credit (but never got), and the Bush administration is about 8 million jobs in the hole -- with only 8 months left to Judgment Day!