05 July 2013

A Good Jobs Report, or Was It? June 2013 BLS Report.

The BLS just released the June 2013 jobs report, to cheers and applause. It seems the number of jobs created exceeded the economists predictions, and resulted in the creation of 195,000 jobs in June and revisions of previous months added another 70,000 jobs.

Seems like good news all around, does it not?

But take a closer look at the numbers, as ZeroHedge does and you find the numbers a bit troubling. Their analysis: "...In June, the household survey reported that part-time jobs soared by 360,000 to 28,059,000 - an all time record high. Full time jobs? Down 240,000.  And looking back at the entire year, so far in 2013, just 130K Full-Time Jobs have been added, offset by a whopping 557K Part-Time jobs." Great charts at the source.

More sadly, the majority of the gains were in hospitality (often short term positions), waitpersons and bartenders, while the manufacturing sector lost about 6,000 jobs. A recovery will need a much better mix to take hold. Low paying part time jobs in an industry with high turnover certainly won't do it.

In other notes to the report, hourly wages crept up a bit, $.10 but the unemployment rate was unchanged at 7.6%

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