2011 Private Employment is 2% Below 2001 Levels
From the Liscio Report, via Alan Abelson, May Employment data shows that a limp recovery is growing limper.
“As our friends and astute data scanners at the Liscio Report, Philippa Dunne and Doug Henwood, observe, disappointments were scattered throughout the report, And while they don’t think May is “an overture to a double dip,” it does plainly reflect accelerating erosion on the job front . . .
More than a little shocking to Philippa and Doug (and to us as well) is that private employment today is 2% below where it stood 10 years ago and, as they’ve noted before, job loss over a 10-year period is unprecedented since the advent of something resembling reliable tallies began in 1890. So far, they point out somewhat grimly, “we’ve regained just 1.8 million jobs lost in the Great Recession and its aftermath, or about one in five.”
That is a truly astonishing datapoint: An unprecedented 10 Year loss of private sector jobs going back as far as reliable data has been available.
The sag in May employment was evident across a broad swath of the economy. The diffusion indices were mostly weak. Over half the payroll gain was accounted for by what Doug and Philippa call the “eat, drink and get sick” sectors—you know, bars, restaurants and health care, which, we might interject, are not typically dynamite payers. Government employment continued to decline in May, dropping 29,000, with local layoffs the main culprit.
The household survey, as the Liscio pair nicely put it, “filed no major dissent from its establishment counterpart.” After proper adjustment, they relate, “the two measures are pretty much aligned.” U-6, which includes the underemployed as well as the unemployed, was a bit of a bright spot, coming in at 15.8% versus April’s 15.9%. Also rating a modest cheer is that hourly wages edged up 0.3%, the biggest rise since January, thanks to a boost from manufacturing, whose hourly pay climbed 0.4%. Service workers, though, saw a rather meager 0.2% advance.
The number of folks out of work increased by 167,000, and a goodly number of those—44.6%, to be precise—have been unemployed for 27 weeks or longer, within crying distance of the all-time high. The average stay in the ranks of the jobless has reached the longest in the postwar period.
The Liscio duo label the labor market “torpid.” One man’s torpor, of course, is another man’s terror, depending on who has a job and who doesn’t. Philippa and Doug warn that, in any case, “we’re likely to see more of the same, with leading indicators rolling over and the forward-looking measures in this employment release (hours, temp employment) weak.”
One last tidbit from the Liscio report: “It’s probably wrong to think of this as the leading edge of a new recession: This kind of slow growth is just what you’d expect from a post-financial crisis recovery.”
That is classic Reinhart & Rogoff, and exactly what I have been quoting for a year now . . .
>
Source:
The Great Payroll Heist
Alan Abelson
BARRON’s, JUNE 4, 2011
http://online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424053111904210704576357602988369060.html
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June 5th, 2011 at 10:07 am
George W. Bush already had the worst job creation record of any president in modern American history even *before* the recession he created began to crest in mid 2009. And nearly all the jobs he “created” were actually phony jobs revolving around the housing bubble.
It will be interesting to see if voters are persuaded by the argument that we need to revive the attitude of crony capitalism, deregulation, and class warfare by the top 1% against the other 99% that the Republicans used to get us in this mess.
June 5th, 2011 at 10:24 am
“Over half the payroll gain was accounted for by what Doug and Philippa call the “eat, drink and get sick” sectors—you know, bars, restaurants and health care, which, we might interject, are not typically dynamite payers.”
And may I add housing to that list prior to the Great Recession. These are direct human-to-human professions with little access to labor saving innovation unlike manufacturing.
Productivity gains in manufacturing have been accelerating by approx. 5 percent y-o-y.
Ford’s most advanced auto plant:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pczGghB8MKg
Comparatively, humans are rather scarce in this facility.
8 percent unemployment is appropriate for the US economy.
June 5th, 2011 at 10:24 am
Under Bushco, hamburger flipping was reclassified as a manufacturing job. That says a lot.
Starting with the election of Ronald Reagan, the middle class has consistently voted to hang itself.
June 5th, 2011 at 10:29 am
“Starting with the election of Ronald Reagan, the middle class has consistently voted to hang itself.”
Similar to buying a giant McMansion.
Which, in the end, sucked the life out of you.
June 5th, 2011 at 12:05 pm
Cullen Roche takes issue with Reinhart & Rogoff. I side with Cullen.
http://pragcap.com/debunking-reinhart-and-rogoff
Joe
June 5th, 2011 at 1:14 pm
re: “The Liscio duo label the labor market “torpid.” ..”
hey, like this wasn’t ~Knowable, from a Distance…
Mark E Hoffer Says: December 23rd, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Jeff,
the activities of the IMF, in C. & S. America, as well as other places, cannot be, broadly, broached here, in the NAU. For, surely, if they were, the population would begin to ask far too many Q’s, and, as well, be on look-out for them–the IMF & their ilk..
better to keep running the false- Chicago v. Keynesian-dichotomy.. Now, it was the “‘evil’ Free-Market” that did it–running on endless-loop via HeadlineNews..
We’re going to wind up with an Economy shot-through with the Plasticizer of ‘new’ Regulation, while the ‘stimulators’/’bailors’ pick winners ‘n losers..
should be Good Times..
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2008/12/chicago-repudiation/#comment-135385
most specifically, .. “…We’re going to wind up with an Economy shot-through with the Plasticizer of ‘new’ Regulation, while the ‘stimulators’/’bailors’ pick winners ‘n losers..
should be Good Times..”
~~
and, in ref., to other Points, above .. http://search.yippy.com/search?input-form=clusty-simple&v%3Asources=webplus&v%3Aproject=clusty&query=U.S.+Canada+policy+harmonization
~~
June 5th, 2011 at 2:10 pm
@franklin411 As a voter I want to see people not relying on/blaming the president for the economy. I’d like to see the office become weaker and not stronger, for many reasons including limiting the ability to spend us silly, or kill us in wars we don’t need (not to say some war is not necessary).
I also don’t buy into class warfare from the 1% to the 99% – it makes sense to me that in a room of 100 people on the street, one of them might be smart enough or slick enough to be rich. 50 of them just want a job, 10 of them might be criminals, 30 of them want handouts, and 9 of them are doing pretty well. Taxing them at varying rates will only give you class warfare, and a mob mentality. In short: so what people have more money than me. It’s better to downsize government than to crank up taxes against some to make it “fair.”
June 5th, 2011 at 2:11 pm
* these numbers are my interpretation of the world around me, no statistics were used or harmed in the formulation of my statement.
*100 people in a room, gathered off the street – and I guess it would depend on which street you were on :)
June 5th, 2011 at 2:14 pm
Hamburger flipping was not reclassified under Bush. It was mentioned once by one of his economic advisors…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N._Gregory_Mankiw
It is like when Romer and Bernstein stupidly once said they think the stimulus package could get the unemployment rate to 8% but the partisan critis have morphed it into “Obama said he would get the unemployment rate down to 7% by now…”
The lie was repeated last week by a CNBC anchor Brian Sullivan last week. Which shows that he had no idea how he was used at Fox, doesn’t care about journalistic integrity, is stupid, or some combination of the three.
with you, or he’s too stupid
June 5th, 2011 at 2:32 pm
[...] 2011 Private Employment is 2% Below 2001 Levels [Via The Big Picture] [...]
June 5th, 2011 at 4:07 pm
I am not surprised that we are losing manufacturing jobs. There was a time when most of the population was employed in producing food. But then progress in technology and efficiency allowed us to greatly reduce the number of people needed to produce all the food the country needed to feed its population. The same is and should be happening with manufactured merchandise. As each individual item takes fewer and fewer man-hours to produce, the size of the manufacturing sector should shrink.
Ultimately we will find that the work needed to produce all the things and services people need, does not require enough work to keep everybody employed for a full 40-50 year career. This means that in order to keep unemployment down we would have to give people fewer hours per week, longer vacations and earlier retirement.
My concern is that our system of predatory capitalism is not suited to facilitate this change. Most people today are counting on the poverty insurance from social security and the wealth from ownership of their home, to cover retirement expenses. That may work out if they can continue working to age 70 and have full Medicare coverage of their health care costs from then. But in a society with shortage of work, many will be kicked out of the work force in their late 50’ies. Furthermore, Medicare will almost certainly have to contain its cost rather than expand its coverage to “younger” people. These problems cannot be solved by market forces (which will actually push in a counter-productive direction), and in this country government is unlikely to be allowed the massive expansion to solve them.
June 5th, 2011 at 10:58 pm
So I’ve been working for a mechanical contractor on site at a semi tool manufacturing company since ’03. Came the crash of the Great Recession, and the semi tool manufacturer expected revenue to drop 40% that quarter. It dropped 96%. The magnitude of the layoffs/forced retirements was awe inspiring. There were two waves and they were bloody and brutal. The company got lean like a broomstick just in time for business to restart. I think they still hear echoes of the crash in the halls. Long time employees are contractors sans benefits now and asked to cover two positions. Those that are left, that is. Is the company gun shy of living through that again? Fuckin’ “A” they are. Have concerns that did most of their business with them gone belly up? Again….. Have they outsourced to everybody they can? Again… Tossing ballast overboard has kinda become the end and not the means. I don’t expect to relive the late 90′s through 2007 period in Silicon Valley again. The days of flush with cash and spreading it around because that is what you do are history. This is the new normal until the Great Recession unwinds. Check out the hiring plans for Tesla vs what NUMMI had in place at the same site. Also check out Solyndra’s proposed sales and hiring for 2010 vs reality. I’ve done very well since 1992, but I’m very skilled and good (lucky) at being in the right place and time… It makes seeing what goes on around me in what was the center of the high tech boom pretty depressing…
June 5th, 2011 at 11:32 pm
osbjmg,
* “I also don’t buy into class warfare from the 1% to the 99%”
Warren Buffett, replies to that notion:
“There’s class warfare, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”
~
“Taxing them at varying rates will only give you class warfare, and a mob mentality.”
Over and over again, American history proves you wrong.
June 6th, 2011 at 1:21 am
Osbjmg, you make a lot of sense. Stop it, now, or the gop will come to get you! But seriously, the folks who thnk they are going to go to work in an industry and stay there for 40 years are out of their minds. We are all gonna have to learn to evolve, and when we are bringing in a big harvest, put a lot of that away. No rushing out and buyin a new Beemer with that bonus. Especially not in my world.
Reality is here. I can here the old guys bitching about it as I type.
July 27th, 2011 at 9:08 am
“Ultimately we will find that the work needed to produce all the things and services people need, does not require enough work to keep everybody employed for a full 40-50 year career. This means that in order to keep unemployment down we would have to give people fewer hours per week, longer vacations and earlier retirement.” – Oh that sound so good, but I dont think it will happen :)
I’ve just read from a European stress test, that the danish banks are some of the most solid in the banking business – here’s one of them:
http://www.totalkredit.dk/TKdk/page?action=loan_new
Does anyone have an article on the American vs European banks?