New Job Numbers: Slowed Gains, Unemployment Down, No California Numbers
Not bad news, but a big side note to the latest jobs numbers:
The final jobs report before the general election shows a gain of just 661,000 jobs for September and the unemployment fell from 8.4 percent to 7.9 percent, according to data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Over the summer the unemployment rate fell from its lockdown spike of 14.7 percent to 8.4 percent by August, but the pace of gains has drastically slowed, pointing toward a protracted period of fragile recovery that could be further imperiled if infection rates worsen.
It’s a “steady flood of job loss,” said Bill Scribbs, an economist for the AFL-CIO labor union. “The next six months… look pretty bad because what happened in August with people using so much credit is they’re going to be reticent to spend money by Christmas. We won’t have enough jobs back by November.”
The data for the monthly jobs report comes from a survey of workers conducted the week of the 12th of the prior month. Fresher data shows scant signs of economic recovery. Initial jobless claims this week were about 837,000, a number the country has hovered around since lockdowns lifted.
Smaller employers are having difficulty holding on and we are now seeing the effect of the big company layoffs.
“We are still experiencing eye-watering levels of conventional claims,” Daniel Alpert, senior fellow in financial macroeconomics at Cornell Law School, told NBC News in an email. “Smaller employers are having difficulty holding on and we are now seeing the effect of the big company layoffs.”
Due to wildfire disruptions, data in this jobs report is not updated for California, which has said it has a backlog of 600,000 claims and over 1 million claims.
One assumes the layoffs in the airline industry this week are not included in this.
Its not going to get better any time soon.Report
But it HAS gotten better every month, no?
Honestly, when the virus first struck I assumed things would be even worse now. The recovery has been unbelievably fast when considering that in all the states I am familiar with there are still strong restrictions against the operation of certain businesses (possibly legitimate).
To put it in perspective, we still have millions who are prohibited from working, and we still have an unemployment rate that is comparable to some large european countries before the pandemic.
So far this hasn’t been a classic economic recession, as much as a recession of millions who can’t do their jobs either because Americans refuse to engage in certain services, or government prohibits commerce. (Again, acknowledging that these may be appropriate for circumstances)Report
well lets see – we haven’t had this high an unemployment rate this close to an election since 1948. While there has been recovery, there are solid estimate that the net permanent job loss is around 4 Million for the country. Many hundreds of thousands if not millions of unemployed Americans are still not receiving basic unemployment, i.e. what they were entitled to before the pandemic broke out. The airlines are expected to lay off 50K Americans by sometime next week because their political buddies on the Hill forgot to renew their own check book when it expired earlier this week. Those things have long term effects, and many of those effects have been punted.
So while it appears we are less worse off then we were at the beginning, we are not at all well, and probably likely to get worse.Report
“…and probably likely to get worse.”
Possibly. Again, my point is I thought it would be even worse and I thought recovery would be even slower than it has been. I hope you are wrong, but as they say, predictions are tough.Report
Winter is coming. Covid seems to spike when people are staying largely indoors (cold winter or hot summer).Report
I’m anticipating a Covid-spike during Flu Season (I hope we’re prepared)… but it’s also clear to me that if we get regular Flu Season+ and no significant spike? Regardless of vaccine status and regardless of ‘science’ quarantine’s over come March 15. And that’s not even contemplating who might be President.Report
I concur. Frankly as the medical field gets more familiarity with covid and as isolation continues to get harder to sustain I expect strict measures will fail, either as a political or practical matter, by the time the weather turns next year. Unless Covid does something to put the fear in us all the populace is going to be inured by spring 2021.Report
By the way, what unemployment benefits that they qualified for before the pandemic are being withheld? Was there a restriction in unemployment benefits somewhere? Askin’, not arguing.Report
The first (or second, I can’t remember) COVID Stimulus bill authorized $600 additional per person in unemployment benefits over and above the paltry sums the states normally give. That lasted until the end of july and then reverted to state level only benefits since.
That aside, the number of initial and sustained claims is keeping most states woefully behind in their provision of benefits. I have a friend in Maryland who went almost 4 months without benefits after application, and another in Wisconsin who went 5 months before seeing benefits.Report
There was a graph a I saw on Twitter that showed that unlike every other recent recession, the loss of jobs in services was greater than and preceded a loss in the ‘goods’ sector.
Which makes sense as most ‘industrial’ processes were going more or less as they were, while stuff like the entire hospitality industry, along with stuff associated with the economy of a central business district was all shut down.
( plus, there are more women who have been laid off/ furloughed than men, which I think may be the first time ever for a recession)
There’s a ton of money being pumped into the economy that probably keeps aggregate demand and thus industrial production up. But I do wonder, and would probably anticipate, that there will be a dip industrial employment as the ‘service economy employed’ part of aggregate demand remains weak, and the money printer no longer goes brrrr.Report