Posted on 05/04/2023 6:06:39 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
If the latest employment trends continue and economists' forecasts prove true, Friday's jobs report could bring back that pre-pandemic feeling.
Economists expect the US economy to have added 180,000 jobs in April, according to consensus estimates on Refinitiv. Excluding the losses during the first year of the pandemic, that would be the smallest monthly gain since December 2019.
It could also hammer home the fact that the US labor market has indeed cooled down from its red-hot recovery over the past two years.
Earlier this week, the latest labor turnover report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics — the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) for March — showed that job openings declined, hiring was flat, quits trended down and layoffs spiked.
"JOLTS is now really pointing in the similar direction as other labor market data: That the labor market is cooling off," said Nick Bunker, economic research director at the Indeed Hiring Lab, the economic data insight and analysis arm of job website Indeed.
The moderation, which is expected to continue, is the desired and logical outcome of the Federal Reserve's inflation-fighting barrage of 10 consecutive interest rate hikes. However, it's unclear how much of a slowing may occur, Bunker said.
"Something that starts as a cooldown can turn into a downturn pretty quickly," he cautioned. What a rising unemployment rate means
Economists are expecting the unemployment rate to tick up to 3.6% from 3.5%, according to Refinitiv. Even so, that jobless rate would still be hovering around a historically low range.
To try to glean whether a downswing is turning into a downturn, Bunker said he plans to dig into the unemployment rate, specifically the labor force flows and reasons for unemployment.
"If more people are job losers [than leaving voluntarily], that's concerning," Bunker said.
(Excerpt) Read more at channel3000.com ...
It wasn't supposed to be possible for job openings to decline as much as they've declined without unemployment going up, Powell said.
"It's possible that we can continue to have a cooling in the labor market without having the big increases in unemployment that have gone with many prior episodes," he said. "And that would be against history. I fully appreciate that would be against the pattern."
He added: "It's still possible that the case of avoiding a recession is, in my view, more likely than that of having a recession. The case of having a recession, I don't rule that out either: It's possible that we will have what I hope would be a mild recession."
Boy, this is like coating the economic news in cotton candy. The fact is everything is grinding to a halt, as in, falling off a cliff.
> Economists expect the US economy to have added 180,000 jobs in April… <
50 years ago: New jobs were in mills and factories.
Today: New jobs are in coffee shops and dollar stores.
Big difference.
That number is not a good number… theyre expecting a bad report. Then the news will pump it up with some other nonsensical false logic and make it seem positive….
HUGE difference. And they never say how many of these ‘jobs’ are part time, held by ONE low-skilled person doing both jobs!
So happy to be out of the Job Market, now. (Retired)
Yes, but we are not screaming as we go over the cliff. We can’t see the cliff anymore. So, ‘happy days are here again’ is the mantra..(WH favorite word is now ‘mantra’, even though they don’t really understand what it means.
Lies.
I’m pretty sure what I am about to write won’t be popular. It’s a completely different angle on employment. I contend that from a pure microeconomic perspective of business efficiency that the unemployment rate in the U.S. should be around 10% to 15%. This is the interface between micro and macroeconomics. This is the percentage of the labor market that is ill equipped to be employed. They are illiterate and lack work ethics. They are perpetually going between unemployment and different employers. They create turnover expenses for businesses. They create inefficiency expenses to businesses, costing businesses more than they are able to produce. There is a cost in morale as well, since productive workers need to do their own jobs and undo the damage the unproductive create. Lastly, when they are in positions that put them in direct or close contact with customers, they provide an inadequate customer service experience that harms businesses’ goodwill and returning customer base.
The key demographic that is most neglected in unemployment discussions is the percentage of the highly productive that have left the workforce. They cannot be seen in the employment statistics unless you focus on the labor participation rate. They are not participating because they are well off enough to not be employed. Don’t confuse this demographic with a much higher percentage of people not participating in the labor market that are permanent members of the able-bodied welfare state. Those that were previously productive members of the workforce have income is mostly passive. With that in mind, they still contribute to the economy by providing capital through investments, but the economy and our nation could benefit from their return to the labor market.
I’m not sure what to do about the unproductive. They are primarily a result of failed government schools and a decay in the American work ethic. I suppose education reform can decrease their numbers over the long term by increasing the literacy rate and through social pressures to develop a work ethic. As for the productive people on the sidelines there needs to be something overwhelmingly enticing occurring in the economy (business) to draw them off the sidelines.
“I’m not sure what to do about the unproductive. They are primarily a result of failed government schools and a decay in the American work ethic.”
Prison Farms.
Road Repair/Clean-up Crews.
Reforestation projects.
Just off top. ;)
Ok Diana, you provoked me to say what’s really on my mind. 😂 Repeal the 13th.
We live in a sea of lies.
The government only tells us what they want us to know.
Excellent comment.
If I may expound slightly on what you said, our our steadily declining culture is the tailwind behind many of the competence and work ethic problems in this country. I don’t know how you reverse or fix that. There seems to be a vicious circle of destructive influences that are dragging (no pun intended) our country down economically and socially.
Basically, the takers are gaining ground on the makers, more and more of whom are deciding to go Galt as the burden of carrying dead weight is no longer worth the effort.
I think you identified the solution: Go Galt. That’s effectively what I have done. I am still able to work, but I live off passive income. I no longer fit in the woke corporate world. I refuse to live a lie just to be employed. There really isn’t anything occurring that would entice me to return to the workforce and certainly not start another business. The barriers to start a business are entirely too high compared to when I started a business in 1990.
Those are going under as they get hit by crime. Even Walmarts in high-crime areas are closing.
When I filled out the gas survey for Krogers, I was NOT AT ALL POLITE!
If we had somewhere else to shop I would tell them Kiss my A. But it is all this little 7,000 K pop town has. Extra driving is not an option.
Hub needs to cut his cable too. He watches crap shows. I turn my hearing aids down and read.
I call this the unemployable rate. Based on my recent experience and limiting it to the pool of actual job seekers, it appears to be well north of 50%.
I’ll go one further - Repeal the 19th! Too many uneducated, non-taxpaying women voting with NO skin in the game! ;)
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