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Payrolls Climb More Than Forecast, U.S. Jobless Rate at 5.5%

Where's your source?

LFPR measure only those between the ages of 16 to 64 and excludes students, homemakers, and persons under the age of 64 who are retired as well. So try again.



Why has it been climbing at the same rate since 2000? Why is it suddenly the only employment metric right wingers use? There was just as much increase while Bush was President, why was it not a problem then?
 
labor participation rate only counts those 16 to 65 so it doesnt matter how big the percentage of our population is over 65 it has no bearing on the rate and I will again point out that if baby boomer early retirement was the major cause of the rate drop then in 2011 when the baby boomers aged out of the rate calculation the rate would start to flatten out but it hasnt.


:lol:

Are you sure?

Yes, he is sure.... he is also wrong. (like many people on this Board that are "sure" of their impressions, so sure they never double check the facts or support their assertions with links)

Over 65 is considered part of the labor force (as is over 95, as long as they are not institutionalized in a NURSING home (not assisted living, but nursing home)).

"...By BLS definitions, the labor force is the following: "Included are persons 16 years of age and older residing in the 50 States and the District of Columbia who are not inmates of institutions (for example, penal and mental facilities, homes for the aged), and who are not on active duty in the Armed Forces."[2]

The labor force participation rate is the ratio between the labor force and the overall size of their cohort (national population of the same age range). In the West during the later half of the 20th century, the labor force participation rate increased significantly, largely due to the increasing number of women entering the workplace...."


http://www.bls.gov/dolfaq/bls_ques23.htm
http://www.bls.gov/bls/glossary.htm
http://www.investorglossary.com/labor-force.htm
http://www.davemanuel.com/investor-dictionary/labor-force-participation-rate/
 
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As far as "labor participation rate" , QE and the stimulus were just as effective as Bush's tax cuts and housing bubble. The number has been climbing at the same rate since Bush was elected. Why is that?


So two post is all it takes to get the average Liberal back to the same irrelevant Bush narratives ?

And the number ( LFPR ) is either ignored or twisted by Obama's apologist every time new job numbers come out.

You could set your watch on it.
 
1) The unemployment rate is very close to full employment. BNP Paribas is already saying we're there: BNP Paribas declares full employment - Business Insider

2) The trends are ALL POSITIVE. Job growth is steady, unemployment rate is falling, LFPR is flat.

They're all trends. I wouldn't go as go as far as to say they're all positive. For example, you cannot have job growth without wage growth, which have been non-existent in this recovery. Average hourly earnings refuses to break the 2.2% threshold, which is a big indicator of the types of jobs that are being created in the economy.

Unemployment is falling due to people leaving the labor force. While people may claim this is due to baby boomers retiring, there is very little evidence of this happening. Last month, the labour force shrank by 178,000 workers. There were 300K + people who moved from unemployed to not in labour force, according to labor force status flows, while only 228K moved from employed to out of labour force. The job gains do not seem to be doing much to increase labor market participation, mostly due to the rapid increase in multiple job holders.

1 month ≠ trend, and the trend is positive -- it's dropped almost 15% since 2010.

Plus, good news! People who dropped out of the workforce are, apparently, starting to rejoin the workforce:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/07/business/economy/jobs-unemployment-figures.html

People join and leave the labour force every month. Far to sporadic to be considered a consistent trend of anything substantial happening. You have one month where 1.5K workers enter the labour force. That probably offsets the -760K who left the labour force months later. Every month, since this recovery, the labor force offsets. A true trend of increasing labour market participation would have more consistency.

fredgraph.png


Job benefits mostly expired for many people last year, and are continuing to expire this year. Ironically, many conservatives claim this is has contributed to the drop in unemployment rates.

The expiration of job benefits are contributing to this rapid growth in employment. This is a good and a bad thing. Its good because employment is growing. It's bad because:

1) It's squeezing productivity, and this productivity squeeze is not going to be allowed to continue at the expense of corporate America who needs high earnings to justify the multiples their getting in the stock market.
2) The lack of job openings in high wage sectors forces individuals to seek employment at the highest possible wages they could find. Despite the fact that employment increases on an average of 265,000 a month, average hourly earnings only increases 0.1% - 0.3% a month.

A drop in the LFPR by 0.1% is negligible, especially since the trend (there's that word again!) is flat since mid-2013.

It's really not a good thing that this trend is flat.

That's the most bizarre twisting of statistics I've seen in a long time. Congratulations!

Anyway. U3 is only one measure, and no one claims it's a complete measure. The Yellen Dashboard is more comprehensive, at the cost of being more complex:
Yellen's Dashboard

Quits rate, job openings, hiring are trending up; change in participation rate is largely flat, maybe a tiny bit up since 12/2009; U3, U6, involuntary part timers, long-term unemployed are trending down. The only real issue is that wages are flat, and that might not be the case for long if we are genuinely near or at full employment.

If you're looking at the numbers rationally, rather than responding emotionally or in a partisan fashion, you'll see that it's a very good monthly report, and that things are looking up.

That's not complex. Complex is if you actually referenced the Beveridge curve.

1423629731_full.png


The last time the unemployment rate was this low and we've had this many job openings was in near 2000. However, the unemployment rate was in the low 4s. If anyone who wanted a job took a job yesterday, the unemployment rate would be around that level. Instead, workers are forgoing jobs that doesn't match their particular needs. Looking at the Beveridge curve shows a greater market inefficiency, possibly a case of structural unemployment.
 
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because the person is still unemployed and who knows the reason.

if everyone left the work force we could have an unemployement rate of 0% based on U3 calculations you should be jumping for joy there are no unemployed people in the US.
it is a BS number.

cool I have 100k people find a job ol wait I had 175k people stop looking for work for X,Y reason *cheers the unemployment rate dropped*
that is not a good sign at all. in fact it is a bad sign.

it didn't drop because people found more work it dropped because people quit looking for work.
that is why you need to look at the U5 and U6 numbers not U3.

what part of this don't you understand. U3 is a joke and everyone knows it.

It's not a joke, but it certainly hasn't mattered to anyone in a long time. Especially not by the Federal Reserve, who all but ejected their 6.5% benchmark for rate hikes, when even they understood that the underlying problems with the economy were far deeper than the unemployment rate.

You have inflation, PCE, average hourly earnings, etc etc. If the labour market merely depended on the unemployment rate, the Fed wouldn't believe the economy still needed to be propped up with low interest rates.
 
If 295,000 more people are employed, that's a victory. It's a pretty strong number in any economy, and far more new jobs than were produced on average during the Reagan years.

But keep looking for creative ways to bash our economy, I am sure that will make things better.

This isn't the same economy as Reagan, or Bush, or Clinton, or pretty much any other president. All that seems to be occurring is the replacement of the high paying jobs of the past with the low paying jobs of today. Most people are grateful for the results that is fine, unless you've succumbed to a painful cabaret of significantly low standards, it's really not fine.

Oh, and the economy created 66,000 leisure and hospitality jobs last month. Happy recovery...
 
Where's your source?

LFPR measure only those between the ages of 16 to 64 and excludes students, homemakers, and persons under the age of 64 who are retired as well. So try again.

Where's your source? The Population used is the Adult Civilian Non-institutional Population: everyone in the United States who is 16 or older, not in the military, prison, or an institution. The labor force are those who are either employed or Unee (looking for work).
So the Labor Force Participation Rate is the percent of the population who are either working or looking for work. The rest are those neither working nor trying to work.
 
Where's your source?

LFPR measure only those between the ages of 16 to 64 and excludes students, homemakers, and persons under the age of 64 who are retired as well. So try again.



Nope. You are incorrect about all of that. Look it up. I shouldn't have to do your homework for you.
 
the U3 number is a political pawn game to make it sound better than what it really is.
To make what sound better than what? The U3 is the percent of the labor force not working. The U5 and U6 measure different things (the percent of the labor force and the marginally attached who aren't working and the percent of the labor force a nd marginally attached who are not working or are working part time for economic reasons)

the U5 and U6 numbers give a better representation of the workforce.
How do you figure when they include people not in the Labor Force?
 
...it's really not fine.

Oh, and the economy created 66,000 leisure and hospitality jobs last month. Happy recovery...

What's wrong with leisure and hospitality jobs being created? Seems to me that if Americans are enjoying more leisure and hospitality, that shows an increase in our standard of living. Now if we had LOST those leisure and hospitality jobs, I would be very alarmed.

And it's only natural that jobs are created in whatever sector needs more workers. What else would you expect?
 
:doh So wrong on multiple levels. Obama has not changed the way unemployment is calculated and we've never counted the entire jobless population as unemployed, and for good reason. The mere state of being jobless ( Stay at home moms, retirees, the physically disabled, college students, and so on) is not a barometer of the health of the labor market, whereas the ability of those who are actively seeking a wage to find one are.

The Fed also understands that people who leave the labour force (for whatever reason) is an indication of labour market health as well.

Because, contrary to popular belief, it's not good the labor force is shrinking or growing slowly because that disrupts potential economic growth. Granted, there are some good reasons why people leave the labour force. Given the current economic climate, these reasons become out of reach for many Americans.
 
What's wrong with leisure and hospitality jobs being created? Seems to me that if Americans are enjoying more leisure and hospitality, that shows an increase in our standard of living. Now if we had LOST those leisure and hospitality jobs, I would be very alarmed.

Leisure and Hospitality jobs are low wage, low skill employment doesn't benefit economic growth. It benefits people like me, because I don't have a shortage of waiters who can take my order at Apple Bees. It doesn't benefit the people who are employed in these sectors because these are not the type of jobs people can build wealth, income or a significant standard of living. These jobs are usually used as a stepping stone, and there is very little room for upward mobility. The economy doesn't need more waiters and bartenders.

And it's only natural that jobs are created in whatever sector needs more workers. What else would you expect?

These jobs are not beneficial to overall wage growth nor economic growth. The idea of job creation is to create value, not work.
 
Leisure and Hospitality jobs are low wage, low skill employment doesn't benefit economic growth. It benefits people like me, because I don't have a shortage of waiters who can take my order at Apple Bees. It doesn't benefit the people who are employed in these sectors because these are not the type of jobs people can build wealth, income or a significant standard of living. These jobs are usually used as a stepping stone, and there is very little room for upward mobility. The economy doesn't need more waiters and bartenders.



These jobs are not beneficial to overall wage growth nor economic growth. The idea of job creation is to create value, not work.

ANY jobs benefit economic growth. Those people get jobs and then spend into our economy creating demand which results in jobs. Lot's of those jobs are fairly high paying. They aren't all maids and desk clerks, many are management positions and high skill level positions.
 
ANY jobs benefit economic growth. Those people get jobs and then spend into our economy creating demand which results in jobs.

It's not that simple. The purpose of hiring is to increase productivity. That increases value, which translates into higher wages for the purpose of economic growth and demand. The problem with leisure and hospitality is that it doesn't create much value because it's a highly unproductive sector. And if you're not creating value then you're wasting resources. This becomes a net drain on the economy, because these resources can be used elsewhere in sectors that are productivity, while possibly creating higher paying jobs.

I mean, the leisure and hospitality sector didn't become the lowest output sector by accident. If it wasn't for the goods producing sector of the economy, it would be the sector with the least economic output. As many employment gains as it received since the start of the recovery, it's unacceptable...

http://www.bea.gov/iTable/iTableHtml.cfm?reqid=51&step=51&isuri=1&5114=q&5102=5

Lot's of those jobs are fairly high paying. They aren't all maids and desk clerks, many are management positions and high skill level positions.

Hardly enough to offset the jobs created, which have mostly been low wage jobs.
 
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It's not that simple. The purpose of hiring is to increase productivity. That increases value, which translates into higher wages for the purpose of economic growth and demand.
The problem with leisure and hospitality is that it doesn't create much value because it's a highly unproductive sector. And if you're not creating value then you're wasting resources. This becomes a net drain on the economy, because these resources can be used elsewhere in sectors that are productivity, while possibly creating higher paying jobs.

I mean, the leisure and hospitality sector didn't become the lowest output sector by accident. If it wasn't for the goods producing sector of the economy, it would be the sector with the least economic output. As many employment gains as it received since the start of the recovery, it's unacceptable...

http://www.bea.gov/iTable/iTableHtml.cfm?reqid=51&step=51&isuri=1&5114=q&5102=5



Hardly enough to offset the jobs created, which have mostly been low wage jobs.

I find it very hard to imagine a world without entertainment. I also find entertainment very productive and valuable. Why else do we pay movie stars and professional athletes and top musicians millions of dollars a year? You don't enjoy being able to go to a nice hotel?

I think that we need all the jobs we can get. The more jobs we have, the more wealth we produce, REGARDLESS of the sector.

Can you really make an argument that a dollar spent on good meal at your favorite eatery is any less productive than a dollar spent on a new pair of kicks, or a dollar spent on a tattoo or on some new mag wheels for your pimped up ride?

The most productive dollar spent and the most productive job is in whatever sector there is enough demand to create more jobs and more dollars. Why would we want more jobs in sectors that don't need more workers?

The only sectors that really create lasting value are research and construction. Nothing else does. Do you not value any jobs other than researchers and construction workers?
 
I find it very hard to imagine a world without entertainment. I also find entertainment very productive and valuable. Why else do we pay movie stars and professional athletes and top musicians millions of dollars a year? You don't enjoy being able to go to a nice hotel?

I think that we need all the jobs we can get. The more jobs we have, the more wealth we produce, REGARDLESS of the sector.

Can you really make an argument that a dollar spent on good meal at your favorite eatery is any less productive than a dollar spent on a new pair of kicks, or a dollar spent on a tattoo or on some new mag wheels for your pimped up ride?

The most productive dollar spent and the most productive job is in whatever sector there is enough demand to create more jobs and more dollars. Why would we want more jobs in sectors that don't need more workers?

The only sectors that really create lasting value are research and construction. Nothing else does. Do you not value any jobs other than researchers and construction workers?

I've never seen a study on it, but it raises an interesting question: would a dollar spent on something with a 3% profit margin result in different velocity than a dollar spent on something with a 20% profit margin.
 
I've never seen a study on it, but it raises an interesting question: would a dollar spent on something with a 3% profit margin result in different velocity than a dollar spent on something with a 20% profit margin.

In that sense, I don't think there really is a "profit margin", there is just "value created". Lot's of companies have a huge sales volume, but don't add much value thus they have a very low net profit to sales ratio.

Like someone who deals in gold bullion may have a huge sales volume in terms of dollars, but he may only net $1 per $1200 in sales (less than 1/10th of 1%). Someone else may be a barber, who might net $200 out of $250 in sales resulting in a profit margin of 80%.

Profit margins as a percent of sales don't really define the productivity of a company.

At least that's my take on things.
 
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