Another Fabricated Jobs Report (Paul Craig Roberts)
Paul Craig Roberts was the Assistant Secretary of Treasury under President Reagan and a former editorial writer for the Wall Street Journal. What follows comes from his blog the link to which follows the article.
Friday’s payroll jobs report is another government fairy tale or, to avoid polite euphemisms, another packet of lies . . .
First, let’s pretend that the 321,000 new jobs that the government claims the economy created in November are true, and let’s see where these jobs are.
Specialty trade contractors, which I think are home and office remodelers, accounted for 20,000 jobs. I doubt that people are putting money into houses and buildings that are worth less than the mortgage.
Manufacturing accounted for 28,000–a very high monthly figure for recent years, one that is unbelievable in view of the rise in the trade deficit and declines in consumer spending on furniture (-3.8%), major appliances (-8.3%), women’s apparel (-17.7%), and household textiles such as towels and sheets (-26.5%), and when US business investment consists of corporations repurchasing their own stocks.
The rest of the claimed jobs are in private domestic services, that is, they are third world jobs. Retail trade claims 50,200 and transportation and warehousing claims 16,700. These numbers are impossible to believe in view of the closings of middle class department stores and Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales flops.
Financial activities claims 20,000, most of which appear to be insurance related–perhaps the growth of Obamacare bureaucracy.
Professional and business services claims 86,000, a very large number for recent years. What are professional and business services?
Professional and business services are “accounting and bookkeeping services” (16,400 jobs)–a possible (temporary) increase as W2s for 2014 are coming due to be issued–and ”administrative and support services (40,600 jobs)–mainly temps.
Next we come to “health care and social assistance” with 37,200 jobs concentrated in “ambulatory health care services” and “social assistance.”
Then we have “food services and drinking places” with 26,500 claimed jobs.
Bringing up the rear is Government employment with 7,000 jobs.
What are we to make of these job claims?
It is unlikely that there were 26,500 new jobs for waitresses and bartenders when consumer spending on restaurants, alcohol, and entertainment declined by 3.8%, 4.5%, and 5.4%. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-02/middle-class-spending-crash-explained Restaurants and bars do not hire more people when demand is dropping.
No one hired 50,200 new retail clerks when anchor stores of shopping centers are closing and strip malls stand abandoned in unfinished construction.
If we are sufficiently gullible to believe the BLS jobs report of 321,000 new jobs in November, we should be disturbed that the vast bulk of the jobs are third world domestic service jobs that do not produce exports to offset the massive trade deficit of the US offshored economy. Moreover, the majority of these jobs do not produce sufficient income for a person to establish a household or qualify for a mortgage or car loan.
America is bleeding herself dry so that corporate executives and shareholders can live the high life on bonuses and capital gains resulting from exploited foreign labor and the destruction of the American middle class.
Now, let’s move on to other conclusions. John Williams, an expert on government statistical data, points out, ignored of course by the presstitute media, that full-time employment in America today is 2,400,000 less than employment in 2007.
What this means is that the US is short 2.4 million jobs from 7 years ago. So how is there an ongoing recovery? In the meantime the population has grown.
Remember, the official unemployment rate is low, because discouraged workers who cannot find jobs are not counted as unemployed. To be counted as unemployed, you have to be actively searching for a job. As job search is expensive and unemployed people have no money, when job search produces no results people give up. They are unemployed but not counted as such.
John Williams points out that most of the 321,000 new jobs were created by manipulating seasonal adjustments and by the birth-death model that arbitrarily adds jobs that the BLS model assumes were created that month. The BLS never provides any proof of those phantom jobs.
John Williams also points out that many of the payroll jobs are part-time jobs and one person often has several jobs. As no one can live on one part time job, many households and individuals are sustained by multiple part-time jobs. The jobs are not a measure of the number of employed, because many persons hold several jobs in order to make ends meet.
Keep in mind that much of the increased activity in the highly touted payroll employment numbers is tied to multiple part-time jobs held by individuals. In other words there is double and triple counting of those employed.
The entire article is here: www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/12/07/another-fabricated-jobs-report-paul-craig-roberts/
Friday’s payroll jobs report is another government fairy tale or, to avoid polite euphemisms, another packet of lies . . .
First, let’s pretend that the 321,000 new jobs that the government claims the economy created in November are true, and let’s see where these jobs are.
Specialty trade contractors, which I think are home and office remodelers, accounted for 20,000 jobs. I doubt that people are putting money into houses and buildings that are worth less than the mortgage.
Manufacturing accounted for 28,000–a very high monthly figure for recent years, one that is unbelievable in view of the rise in the trade deficit and declines in consumer spending on furniture (-3.8%), major appliances (-8.3%), women’s apparel (-17.7%), and household textiles such as towels and sheets (-26.5%), and when US business investment consists of corporations repurchasing their own stocks.
The rest of the claimed jobs are in private domestic services, that is, they are third world jobs. Retail trade claims 50,200 and transportation and warehousing claims 16,700. These numbers are impossible to believe in view of the closings of middle class department stores and Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales flops.
Financial activities claims 20,000, most of which appear to be insurance related–perhaps the growth of Obamacare bureaucracy.
Professional and business services claims 86,000, a very large number for recent years. What are professional and business services?
Professional and business services are “accounting and bookkeeping services” (16,400 jobs)–a possible (temporary) increase as W2s for 2014 are coming due to be issued–and ”administrative and support services (40,600 jobs)–mainly temps.
Next we come to “health care and social assistance” with 37,200 jobs concentrated in “ambulatory health care services” and “social assistance.”
Then we have “food services and drinking places” with 26,500 claimed jobs.
Bringing up the rear is Government employment with 7,000 jobs.
What are we to make of these job claims?
It is unlikely that there were 26,500 new jobs for waitresses and bartenders when consumer spending on restaurants, alcohol, and entertainment declined by 3.8%, 4.5%, and 5.4%. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-12-02/middle-class-spending-crash-explained Restaurants and bars do not hire more people when demand is dropping.
No one hired 50,200 new retail clerks when anchor stores of shopping centers are closing and strip malls stand abandoned in unfinished construction.
If we are sufficiently gullible to believe the BLS jobs report of 321,000 new jobs in November, we should be disturbed that the vast bulk of the jobs are third world domestic service jobs that do not produce exports to offset the massive trade deficit of the US offshored economy. Moreover, the majority of these jobs do not produce sufficient income for a person to establish a household or qualify for a mortgage or car loan.
America is bleeding herself dry so that corporate executives and shareholders can live the high life on bonuses and capital gains resulting from exploited foreign labor and the destruction of the American middle class.
Now, let’s move on to other conclusions. John Williams, an expert on government statistical data, points out, ignored of course by the presstitute media, that full-time employment in America today is 2,400,000 less than employment in 2007.
What this means is that the US is short 2.4 million jobs from 7 years ago. So how is there an ongoing recovery? In the meantime the population has grown.
Remember, the official unemployment rate is low, because discouraged workers who cannot find jobs are not counted as unemployed. To be counted as unemployed, you have to be actively searching for a job. As job search is expensive and unemployed people have no money, when job search produces no results people give up. They are unemployed but not counted as such.
John Williams points out that most of the 321,000 new jobs were created by manipulating seasonal adjustments and by the birth-death model that arbitrarily adds jobs that the BLS model assumes were created that month. The BLS never provides any proof of those phantom jobs.
John Williams also points out that many of the payroll jobs are part-time jobs and one person often has several jobs. As no one can live on one part time job, many households and individuals are sustained by multiple part-time jobs. The jobs are not a measure of the number of employed, because many persons hold several jobs in order to make ends meet.
Keep in mind that much of the increased activity in the highly touted payroll employment numbers is tied to multiple part-time jobs held by individuals. In other words there is double and triple counting of those employed.
The entire article is here: www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/12/07/another-fabricated-jobs-report-paul-craig-roberts/
posted by Jim Karger at 7:12 AM
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