Happy #JobsReport.
Forecasts’ center:
+1.2 million jobs
9.8% unemployment
8:30 ET @BLS_gov delivers the most-important signals abt how economy is changing. Hope you’re staying healthy. Buckle up.
In Mar & Apr, we lost 22.2 million jobs (14.5%).
By July, we remained down 8.4% from Feb.
+1.2m in Aug would leave us 11.7 million jobs (7.7%) down and mean we recovered 52.7% of jobs.
I watch the share of Americans employed. The margin between employed and not is easier to measure and more comparable to the past these days than the margin between searching for work & not (unemployed).
At 55.1 percent in July, it was the lowest in the 57 years prior to April.
While we wait, remember that workplace health & safety is the central issue in our economy today & making investments to improve it will help make economic activity sustainable.
1.371 million jobs gained last month (mid-July to mid-Aug).
-39K revisions of last 2 months
In 4 months, we've recovered 52% of the way back from the losses of March and April.
The recovery is slowing
4.78 million: June
1.73 million: July
1.37 million: Aug
How does change over the year to Aug 2020 compare to recent changes in prior years?
Brutal. We're down 10.25 million jobs over the year. That's worse than the Great Recession by a lot.
It would've been much worse without fiscal stimulus from deficit spending for enhanced UI, PPP...
Fiscal stimulus from all sources added an estimated 15% to GDP growth in 2020Q2.
We let it expire & fiscal stimulus is providing just a 5% boost in 2020Q3.
brookings.edu/interactives/h…
The unemployment rate fell to 8.3%. Still quite high but moving in the right direction. But this is a messy measure. It excludes people not looking for a job due to fear of infection risk.
The share of adults employed rose by 1.4 percentage points (pp) to 56.5 percent.
That's good news, though still 4.6 pp lower than in February. Now lowest in 44 years before April.
The share of prime-age Americans employed looks better. But still down 5.2 percentage points since Feb.
That means, in 4 months, we've recovered 48% of the Mar+April dip.
That’s the extensive quantity (Q) margin. Intensive Q margin is average hours.
Average workweek hours for private sector ticks up 0.1 to 34.6 hours. People who are working are working more than in March and April.
Unemployment rates remain high for everyone but especially Black, Hispanic, and Asian Americans.
The Black unemployment rate at 13% is 7.2pp higher than its 5.8% level in Feb and almost double white Americans' unemployment rate.
The number of Americans working part time but would prefer full time is moving in the right direction.
But we've recovered just half way back from April and 3.3 million more Americans are in this situation than in Feb.
U.S. has 5.9 million job openings.
29 million Americans who lost their jobs through no fault of their own are relying on unemployment insurance payments. Feds cut these in Aug to abt half of usual earnings.
If we filled every opening, 23 million'd still rely on UI benefits.
In sum,
1. Jobs down about 8% since Feb
2. We've recovered about half of Mar+Apr loss
3. Pace of improvement decelerating a bit
4. Virus remains out of control
5. Fiscal support for families & small biz has fallen dramatically
6. Winter is coming.
Last thing.
@BLS_gov does amazing work to create timely, accurate info about America's working families, a huge public good.
They are there for us & we need to show up for them.
If you are a labor economist or care about workers & employment, follow & join @Friends_of_BLS.
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