According to the most recent report from the federal government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, the US economy added 142,000 jobs during August while the unemployment rate fell slightly to 4.2 percent. Since the highly disappointing July jobs report, media reports on the state of the job market have become far less positive. This report was described by CNN as “mixed news.”
Yet, the employment situation has not fundamentally changed from what has been common over the past year. Claims of solid, or even “blowout,” gains in employment throughout most of the past year have always been unconvincing if we look at the bigger picture. August’s “mixed” jobs report simply shows a continuation of the gradually weakening employment market that we have been seeing for months.
The lackluster nature of the employment market has been masked in these reports by a focus on a single data point within the report: the establishment survey’s total jobs number. Most reporting on August’s jobs numbers, for example, has ignored the fact that, according to the federal government’s household survey, the number of employed people in America has fallen over the past year. Moreover, the household survey suggests that much of the growth in “jobs” added by the establishment survey are due to made-up numbers created through the so-called “birth-death model” which simply assumes into existence hundreds of thousands of jobs created by hypothetical new businesses.
Let’s take a closer look. […]
— Read More: mises.org
