There’s something mistaken with previous U.S. jobs reports.
The federal government quietly erased 439,000 jobs through November 2023, a better have a look at the numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows.
Meaning its initial jobs results were inflated by 439,000 positions, and the job market is just not as healthy as the federal government suggests.
For the reason that government worn out 439,000 jobs after the very fact, the full percentage of jobs created by the federal government last yr is even higher.
Increased government hiring has been driving the jobs numbers higher.
This matters because U.S. jobs reports move the markets and U.S. Treasury yields.
Plus, they’re a major factor in the Federal Reserve’s decisions in regards to the path of rate of interest hikes and cuts. All that affects U.S. consumers’ pocketbooks.
“Time to stop trading off the payroll data,” tweeted David Rosenberg, founding father of Rosenberg Research Associates.
By his calculations, he says the downward revisions got here to “an epic 443,000,” adding, “greater than 40% of payroll growth in 2023” got here from “the fairy tale ‘Birth-Death’ model” the BLS uses to “guesstimate” its jobs reports.
Again, the federal government sector in December ranked high in job creation.
It created 52,000 jobs in the ultimate month of 2023.
As FOX Business’s Edward Lawrence points out, that brings the three-month average of jobs created by the federal government sector to 50,000 per thirty days.
Lawrence says Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su “wouldn’t answer if that is sustainable once I pressed her.”
The health care and social assistance sector, which relies heavily on money from government spending, created about 59,000 jobs.
The issue of overstated jobs numbers is just not a recent one.
In August 2023, the BLS issued a preliminary revision for the 12 months through March 2023 showing U.S. job growth for that period was overstated by a net 306,000 jobs.
That’s 25,500 fewer jobs on average per thirty days in that period.
Private sector job creation also was adjusted lower by 358,000 in that period, while government payrolls were revised by a rise of 52,000.
The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank in December 2022 also raised eyebrows when its algorithms predicted the BLS had overreported jobs growth by 1.1 million in the second quarter of that yr.
The president, too, has been accused of taking an excessive amount of credit for the job numbers.
He claimed he created 13 million to 14 million jobs.
But economists and market analysts have identified those were jobs the U.S. economy clawed back after pandemic shutdowns erased 22 million jobs.
In point of fact, the economy under President Biden “added back” all of the jobs lost in the pandemic and has “created” 4.86 million jobs since February 2020.
That’s a ho-hum result.
Plus, the economy “added back” all the manufacturing jobs lost in the pandemic and “created” 201,000 manufacturing jobs.
Just 6,000 were created in December 2023.
Manufacturing jobs are highly vital.
They create a halo effect for other sectors, be it in the service industry or health care.
The manufacturing sector has been in contraction for 14 straight months.
Today, U.S. labor force participation is at a historically low 62.5%.
As Edward Lawrence reports, the December jobs report shows 683,000 employees dropped out of the labor force.
A record high 8.69 million people now hold multiple jobs to make ends meet.
The economy lost 1.5 million full-time employees since June of last yr, while adding 796,000 part-time employees.
Meaning more employees are holding down multiple jobs to pay for the next cost of living on account of a cumulative 17.4% inflation rate under this White House.
That’s not a superb sign.