US Employment

Is the USA really creating new jobs? Is the US unemployment rate really 5%? Is any of this believable?

Here are the facts, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics - not seasonally adjusted.

The USA had 147,190,000 employed persons in December of 2014. There were 149,703,000 employed persons a year later, for a net gain of about 2.8 million employed persons. The claimed unemployment rate, not seasonally adjusted is 4.8%.

But Wait!  

In November, 2015, there were 149,766,000 employed persons, versus 149,703,000 the next month, implying that the USA actually LOST 63,000 jobs in one month! The headline for the news release for the jobs report for November, 2015, which was released in December, 2015, said, "Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 211,000 in November, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 5.0%."  It is not clear how 63,000 fewer actual jobs in December miraculously became 211,000 more jobs. Maybe it was the weather?

But wait! There is more! 

The total US labour force was 155,521,000 in December, 2014, and grew to 157,245,000 a year later, for an increase of about 1.7 million last year.  But we just saw above that the numbers from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate that there were 2.8 million new jobs created last year.  

Get it? 1.7 million is smaller than 2.8 million - apparently, there were 1.1 million more new workers than the total number of new persons in the workforce last year! No, this doesn't make any sense.

What does stand out from these reports is that, of an available working population of about 252 million, about 95 million are not in the workforce at all.  Even deducting tens of millions of people who cannot work owing to, for example, disabilities and staying home with children, there is no way that equates to a 5% unemployment rate.

The swindle continues!