Economy lost 35,000 jobs in Sept

[papau]

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
Friday, October 7, 2005.

THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION: SEPTEMBER 2005


Nonfarm payroll employment was little changed (-35,000) in September, and the unemployment rate rose to 5.1 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. The measures of employment and unemployment reported in this news release reflect both the impact of Hurri-cane Katrina, which struck the Gulf Coast in late August, and ongoing labor market trends. Over the 12 months ending in August, payroll employment grew by an average of 194,000 a month and the unemployment rate trended downward.

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita |


Data for September are the first from the household survey |
(Current Population Survey or CPS) and the establishment survey |
(Current Employment Statistics survey or CES) to reflect the |
impact of Hurricane Katrina. |

In September, the CPS was conducted largely according to |
standard procedures. Efforts were made to contact households |
in storm-affected areas with the exception of Orleans and |
Jefferson parishes in Louisiana, which were under mandatory |
evacuation orders when interviewer instructions were issued. |

For the September CES estimates, several modifications to |
the usual estimation procedures were adopted to better reflect |
employment in Katrina-affected areas. The changes included: |
a) modification of procedures to impute employment counts for |
survey nonrespondents in the most heavily impacted areas, |
b) adjustments to sample weights for sample units in the more |
broadly defined disaster area to compensate for lower-than- |
average survey response rates, and c) modification of the |
adjustment procedure for the business net birth/death estimator |
to reflect likely changes in business birth/death patterns in |
the disaster areas. |

Hurricane Rita made landfall during the September data col- |
lection period. As a result, response rates for both surveys |
were lower than normal in some areas. However, because the re- |
ference periods for both surveys occurred before Hurricane Rita |
struck, the impact of this storm on measures of employment and |
unemployment was negligible. |

For more information on household and establishment survey |
procedures and estimates for September 2005, see http://www.bls.|
gov/katrina/cpscesquestions.htm. Or, call [phone] for |
information about the household survey, and [phone] for |
information about the establishment survey. |


Unemployment (Household Survey Data)
Both the number of unemployed persons, 7.7 million, and the unemployment rate, 5.1 percent, rose in September. They had been trending down in recent months and remain lower than a year earlier. (See table A-1.)
The unemployment rates for most major worker groups—adult men (4.5 percent), adult women (4.6 percent), whites (4.5 percent), and Hispanics or Latinos (6.5 percent) rose in September. The jobless rates for teenagers (15.8 percent) and blacks (9.4 percent) showed little change. The unemployment rate for Asians was 4.1 percent, not seasonally adjusted. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.)
In September, the number of persons unemployed due to job loss rose by 234,000 to 3.7 million. The number of newly unemployed—those who were unemployed less than 5 weeks—grew by 193,000 to 2.7 million. Both of these numbers had been trending down in recent months. (See tables A-8 and A-9.)
Total Employment and the Labor Force (Household Survey Data)
Total employment (142.4 million) and the employment-population ratio (62.8 percent) were little changed in September. The labor force participation rate (66.2 percent) was unchanged over the month. (See table A-1.)
Persons Not in the Labor Force (Household Survey Data)
In September, 1.4 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force, about the same as a year earlier. These individuals wanted and were available to work and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed, however, because they did not actively search for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. The number of discouraged workers, at 362,000 in September, was little changed from a year earlier. Discouraged workers, a subset of the marginally attached, were not currently looking for work specifically because they believed no jobs were available for them. The other 1.1 million persons marginally attached to the labor force had not searched for work for reasons such as school attendance or family responsibilities. (See table A-13.)
Industry Payroll Employment (Establishment Survey Data)
Total nonfarm payroll employment was little changed in September (-35,000), seasonally adjusted. This followed job gains of 277,000 in July and 211,000 in August (as revised). Hurricane Katrina caused job losses in September among many industries in the affected areas. At the national level, these storm-related losses may have been offset or exacerbated in some industries by developments in the rest of the country. (State and metropolitan area payroll data, including information by industry, will be released by BLS on October 21.) (See table B-1.)
Retail trade lost 88,000 jobs in September, with declines spread across several component industries. Over the prior 12 months, employment in retail trade had increased by 18,000 per month on average. In September, there were job losses in clothing and accessories stores (-28,000), sporting goods stores (-17,000), and building material and garden supply stores (-9,000). Over the month, food and beverage stores lost 30,000 jobs, much of which was due to store closings unrelated to the hurricane.
Employment in the leisure and hospitality industry fell by 80,000 in September, partly due to the hurricane. Employment in food services, which includes restaurants and drinking places, decreased by 54,000 over the month, after averaging monthly gains of 23,000 jobs during the 12 months ending in August. Amusements, gambling, and recreation lost 19,000 jobs in September.


In September, manufacturing employment was down by 27,000 and has declined by 118,000 over the year. The September job decline was concentrated in trans-portation equipment, reflecting a strike of 18,000 workers in the aerospace industry. Employment declines in electrical equipment and appliances (-4,000) and paper and paper products (-3,000) were offset by a gain in machinery manu-facturing (7,000).
Employment in transit and ground passenger transportation declined by 8,000 in September. Air transportation lost 6,000 jobs over the month; about half of the job loss was due to strike activity in the industry. Truck trans-portation employment was flat in September and has shown little change since June.
Professional and business services employment rose by 52,000 in September. More than half of the employment increase was in temporary help services (32,000), where hurricane recovery efforts may have boosted hiring. Employ-ment in architectural and engineering services rose by 8,000 over the month. These increases were partly offset by a decline in legal services (-7,000).
Health care employment continued to grow in September, rising by 37,000. Ambulatory health care services, which include doctors’ offices and outpatient clinics, added 16,000 jobs. Hospitals and nursing and residential care faci-lities also contributed to the employment gain.
Construction employment rose by 23,000 in September, about in line with the industry’s average monthly gain over the past year. Job gains in September were concentrated largely among residential specialty trade contractors. Mining employment continued to trend upward, adding 5,000 jobs over the month. Support activities for mining operations accounted for much of the increase.
Weekly Hours (Establishment Survey Data)
The average workweek for production or nonsupervisory workers on private nonfarm payrolls was unchanged at 33.7 hours in September, sesonally adjusted. The manufacturing workweek remained at 40.5 hours, and factory overtime was down by 0.1 hour to 4.4 hours. (See table B-2.)
The index of aggregate weekly hours of production or nonsupervisory workers on private nonfarm payrolls declined by 0.2 percent in September to 102.8 (2002 0). The manufacturing index was down by 0.1 percent over the month to 93.6. (See table B-5.)
Hourly and Weekly Earnings (Establishment Survey Data)
Average hourly earnings of production or nonsupervisory workers on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 3 cents in September to $16.18, seasonally adjusted. Average weekly earnings increased by 0.2 percent over the month to $545.27. Over the year, average hourly earnings increased by 2.6 percent, and average weekly earnings grew by 2.3 percent. (See table B-3.)



The Employment Situation for October 2005 is scheduled to be released on Friday, November 4, at 8:30 A.M. (EST).


Benchmark Revisions of the Payroll Survey

In accordance with usual practice, the Bureau of Labor Statistics
has completed preliminary tabulations of the universe counts for the first quarter of this year. The tabulations indicate that the esti- mate of total nonfarm payroll employment will require a downward re- vision of 191,000, or one-tenth of one percent, for the March 2005 reference month. The historical average for benchmark revisions over the last 10 years has been plus or minus two-tenths of one percent. BLS will publish data revised to the March 2005 benchmark on February 3,2006, with the release of data for January 2006. |

[rooboy]

1. Fuckwit Steve Doocy on Fox News...

"Is it just me, or is that a SMALL number???"

Would it still be a small number if you were one of those 35,000 Steve???

[TheCowsCameHome]

2. Loosey Doocy is one I wouldn't miss.

The man is a first-class moran.

[Kelvin Mace]

8. Actually, I think BushCo has fixed the number

1.3 million people had to leave the NOLA area. Many no longer have jobs to go back to.

I am betting that this number will be quietly "adjusted" during a Friday news dump.

[Roland99]

3. So, everyone who was employed in New Orleans, Slidell, Biloxi, etc.

all have jobs now???

[KayLaw]

4. It's a very suspicious number

Birth/Death adjustment rum amok, or what? Very strange.

[haroldgiowa]

5. Numbers can be misleading

You can take all the unemployment numbers with a grain of salt. To be counted those who lost their jobs need to apply for unemployment to be counted. I would bet many have not even applied yet.

Again, employment numbers can be mis leading. How many thousands if not millions have given up looking for a job. Go six months on unemployment, go off the unemployment lists, unemployment problem solved.

[Roland99]

6. No, that's not true. The unemployment % is based on a survey.

It's not based on the number of people who've filed.

[papau]

7. Birth/death is only part of the problem - "zero" employed means at

home employment per birth/death rules - but there was only a 10,000 increase in the birth/death number - meaning the survey is not admitting that folks not working in Ward 9 New Orleans have lost their jobs forever.



Katrina adjustment:

"The business net birth/death job estimator for adjusting employment estimates was left unchanged for national estimates, aside from the use of reported employment of zero from affected businesses, but will be modified for states and metropolitan areas in recognition that the statistical relationship between business births and deaths may have changed in the disaster areas. "

[papau]

9. Here is Birth death month by month numbers after latest "benchmarking"

Calendar year 2005
-280 100 179 257 207 184 -76 132 54 0 0 0 757
yr 2004
225 202 181 -80 123 44 55 9 66 44 54 78 1001
yr 2003
-391 119 151 128 192 164 -83 124 33 45 30 62 574
yr 2002
-239 -4 42 45 176 156 -61 106 23 68 25 53 390
yr 2001
-133 31 52 75 112 106 -13 53 10 -31 -23 3 242
yr 2000
-23 6 6 53 72 48 11 37 23 10 -5 -6 232
yr 1999
0 0 0 1 9 5 -6 9 4 4 6 9 41

before 1999 the "birth death adjustment to before seasonal adjustment numbers was always zero
total to date: 3237

[papau]

10. Here is Birth death month by month numbers after latest "benchmarking"

Calendar year 2005
-280 100 179 257 207 184 -76 132 54 0 0 0 757
yr 2004
225 202 181 -80 123 44 55 9 66 44 54 78 1001
yr 2003
-391 119 151 128 192 164 -83 124 33 45 30 62 574
yr 2002
-239 -4 42 45 176 156 -61 106 23 68 25 53 390
yr 2001
-133 31 52 75 112 106 -13 53 10 -31 -23 3 242
yr 2000
-23 6 6 53 72 48 11 37 23 10 -5 -6 232
yr 1999
0 0 0 1 9 5 -6 9 4 4 6 9 41

before 1999 the "birth death adjustment to before seasonal adjustment numbers was always zero
total to date: 3237

[VegasWolf]

12. Exactly!!! What complete, utter nonsense this number is! nt

[CountAllVotes]

11. kick!

:kick: