308,000 Jobs Created in March (UE Rate Up at 5.7%)

CNBC | April 2, 2004

[RWR8189]

308,000 jobs were created in March.

The unemployment rate held steady 5.7%

HUGE

[oceanview]

Forget the household survey, its picking up things like people doing home based EBAY businesses, and unemployed techies who now consider themselves employed as consultants, with little or no contracts.

How can you consider someone employed who spends their time buying used books at garage sales and flipping them on EBAY for a profit. That's not a job, its a hobby.

[expat_panama]

The BLS server is recovering from today's hyperhits.  They got all the breakdowns you all were talking about, but plotting everything kind brings on info-overload.  I found it simpler just to look at total employment (self-employed, payroll, everyone) and comparing it to that as a percent total population. 

We could massage this to make either Bush or Kerry look either good or bad-- but that's not our goal.  As far as knowing what's happening I see employment increasing and those working are roughly about the same as a percent of the total population.

Anybody see anything else?

[expat_panama]

How can you consider someone employed who spends their time buying used books at garage sales and flipping them on EBAY for a profit...

Or someone like me who lost his engineering job during Clinton's watch and now sits at home playing on the internet?

Regardless of what any of us say, the IRS says I'm making more money than ever and the payroll numbers say I'm unemployed.  Now if only it was the IRS that thought I was unemployed...

Could we all agree that if incomes were up in all quintiles that it would mean that 'true' employment was up?

[Tennessean4Bush]

Not sure now how all of these numbers worked into the figures, 72,000 workers were idle, but it may not a 1:1 effect on the March numbers. Not sure where they get 10-20K out of the 72K.

Thanks for the link! I think that even though 72,000 workers came back, that meant that 50,000-60,000 temp workers may have to be let go. But anyway, this report meshes well with another I saw that said it was not a net +72,000.

[TomEwall]

I kind of felt like "finally" myself. It's true the economy has been adding jobs, but not in a way to make it seem that Bush's plan for the economy was working.

Very positive for Bush is that the recent polls have (disregarding two) been positive, and these polls do not reflect the job news from today. Of particular not, Rasmussen shows Bush has overtaken Kerry on the question as to who can better handle the economy, and this is without the news from today being known. So one can expect things to bump more.

I think there's a good chance we'll soon see all, or neraly all, of the battleground states showing positive results for Bush.

[ChadGore]

GOOD NEWS FOR AMERICA ?

"I'm
deeply
saddened"

[ThinkDifferent]

How can you consider someone employed who spends their time buying used books at garage sales and flipping them on EBAY for a profit.

If that's how they make their living, how can you *not* consider them employed?

[AndyTheBear]

But, look at the bright side DIMS -- John Kerry served in Vietnam -- I heard someone say that.

Yes, I think I heard that somewhere too, but what I haven't heard is details of how he got wounded three times in four months. Does anyone know?

[commish]

How dare you question his patriotism!!!!!

[templar]

Why not? They are unemployed, correct? If they are able to work, they should still count.

I didn't mean to imply that they don't count. Actually, they do count quite a bit when the impact of the government aid they consume is figured in; the aid they didn't need when they were working. It's just that they are probably a poor indicator of where the economy is headed (unless they are really large numbers) and how healthy the work/income trends are.

Something that strikes me as odd about these newly created jobs is that some economic analysts are attributing a large part of them to the end of the grocery strike and the striking workers returning to their old jobs. Calling these jobs 'created' jobs (implying that they are new jobs that weren't here before) gives a false sense of economic growth in the job market when, in reality, it is just a return to active status of jobs that have been here all along.

The whole jobs and unemployment thing is so politically sensitive, I doubt we ever get any real figures from any side: A shame, since I would like to have some really valid (uninfluenced) figures and indicators to make my plans around.

[Alas Babylon!]

Construction employment rose by 71,000 in March following a decline the previous month. The industry has added 201,000 jobs in the past year.

Yes, construction was down in Febrauary. That's due to a thing called WINTER. Now they're going up, due to a thing called SPRING. Democrats, please repeat after me: Construction jobs, down in Winter, up in Spring.

[Citizen of the Savage Nation]

I'm hearing that a settled grocery strike in CA accounts for about 72,000 of these jobs. But even factoring that out, it leaves a very good number.

Actually, it only accounted for 10-20,000.

[Jorge]

We're all doomed. Congratulations.

Did you see Kerry trying to say he welcomed the good news on jobs?
It obviously was painful for him to say it. You could tell he was totally bummed.
And of course he had to add a negative spin on it at the end.

The fact is Kerry and the Dems have been betting on bad news for America and the more things improve the more they retreat into denial.
Let's pray this keeps up. Bush deserves re-election.

[FreeReign]

Calling these jobs 'created' jobs (implying that they are new jobs that weren't here before) gives a false sense of economic growth in the job market when, in reality, it is just a return to active status of jobs that have been here all along.

And calling these jobs "lost" -- during the strike -- gave a false sense of economic contraction.

[Tennessean4Bush]

I'm hearing that a settled grocery strike in CA accounts for about 72,000 of these jobs.

Most economists say the settled strike only accounts for net 10,000-20,000 in this report as strikers are displacing temp hires, etc.

[oceanview]

great, so then panhandlers count as employed too.

[FreeReign]

Forget the household survey, its picking up things like people doing home based EBAY businesses, and unemployed techies who now consider themselves employed as consultants, with little or no contracts.

The household survey is more random. The Labor survey is more targeted.

Nowadays, with the established companies globalizing, and the newer companies starting out localized, a targeted survey such as Labor's is less accurate than a random survey -- the Household survey.

Me thinks, they finally got around to updating the call list for the Labor survey.

[null and void]

Kewl! I'll pencil you in. Have your people call my people...

[templar]

And calling these jobs "lost" -- during the strike -- gave a false sense of economic contraction.

Yep. The truth really doesn't seem to figure in anywhere anymore.

[samantha]

What I find very exciting is the dirty dems and the kama sutra candidate will spend a bloody fortune on this campaign.Since skerry campaign raised 38 million in march ,throwing all that moolah into the economy is ironically great for pubbies. Plus move on.org will use george sorass money. They will spend money like drunken sailors,and the economy will prosper. Coupled with the pubbie spending,the economy should take off big time/