U.S. Oct. job growth surges by 126,000

[treepig]

U.S. Oct. job growth surges by 126,000 By Rex Nutting
WASHINGTON (CBS.MW) - The U.S. economy added 126,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in October after a revised gain of 125,000 in September, more than double the 57,000 originally reported, the Labor Department estimated Friday. August's 41,000-job loss was revised to a gain of 35,000. The unemployment rate sank to 6 percent, the lowest rate since April, the department said. Total hours worked in the economy rose 0.4 percent to the highest level since January. Economists were expecting a gain of about 56,000 in October, according to a survey conducted by CBS MarketWatch. They also expected the jobless rate to remain at 6.1 percent.

http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/newsfinder/pulseone.asp?dateid=37932.3546643518-809512918&siteid=mktw

[displacedtexan]

1. what about the 145K lost in october?

don't believe a word they report!

[Zynx]

4. Those were announced layoffs.

Those are coming up in the next few months, but few happened in October.

I kind of expected this number. Temporary hiring is strong and there was a bump of something like 40,000 from hiring replacement workers for those striking on the west coast. Meanwhile, manufacturing continues to lose jobs with another 24,000 gone this month or so. Most of this hiring came in healthcare and retail with some special factors in both.

[papau]

23. 8.8 million remained unemployed

About 8.8 million remained unemployed last month, with about 2 million without jobs for 27 weeks or more

Job Watch -

On October 21, The New York Times reported that Treasury Secretary John
Snow projected that the economy will generate two million additional jobs,about 200,000 per month, before next years election. This new numberis a huge retreat from the administrations previous projection made when it was selling its tax cuts. In February the Council of Economic Advisers projected 306,000 per month job growth starting in mid-2003 if the tax cuts were passed and roughly 228,000 jobs created per month without the tax cuts.

It takes 170,000 new jobs each month just to provide jobs for an expanding population and workforce and 300,000 new jobs each month to lower the unemployment rate by one percentage point over the course of a year.


http://jobwatch.org/

[treepig]

50. directly from the bls website

In October, 1.6 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force,
170,000 more than a year earlier. (Data are not seasonally adjusted.) 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. Of
the 1.6 million, 462,000 were discouraged workers--persons who were not current-
ly looking for work specifically because they believed no jobs were available
for them. The number of discouraged workers was up by 103,000 from October
2002.

[Galley_Queen]

56. I Don't Understand

how they measure 'discouraged' workers or workers who did not actively search for work. If you are collecting unemployment, you have to report your job search activities for each week. Go off of unemployment, and you no longer do that. So how do they know these numbers?? The word 'survey' is used but are they trying to tell us they surveyed all 1.6 million workers?

[treepig]

61. the bureau of labor statistics

does a random survey of about ~60,000 people each month and asks them a series of questions to determine their employment status (i.e., the unemployment stats cited each month by the bls have nothing to do with whether a person is collecting benefits or not).

[angel eyes]

67. The Workforce is around 50% of the Total Population

The workforce is around 50% of the Total Population.

The U.S. population will increase by 30 million by the year 2010.

This means we need 15 million new jobs over the next 7 years to keep pace with the labor pool.

Which means we need 2 million new jobs per year over the next 7 years to keep pace with the labor pool.

Which means we need 170,000 new jobs per month over the next 7 years to keep pace with the labor pool.

[rocktivity]

66. Originally posted by Zynx

Most of this hiring came in healthcare and retail with some special factors in both.

I can't speak for the healthcrare sector, but I can think of a "special factor" in the retail sector: Santa Claus is coming to town.


rocknation

[Atman]

2. SURGE? 125,000 is a surge?

Only on Planet Republican!

[DoctorMyEyes]

3. I'm all for good news

really I am, but am I alone in having a funny feeling about all of the "future's so bright, I've gotta wear shades" headlines that we've seen in the last week?

[Bronco69]

5. I'm with you!

It seems the worse things get the more we are supposed to jump up and say "look at the progress we're making!"

[whyaduck]

26. you're not alone

I have been suspicious of all of this "good news" too. It's the action verbs: the economy "rocketed" ahead, job growth is "surging." Local newscasts have been repeating these kinds of verbs ad nauseum. It's nothing more than PR. And I wouldn't be at all surprised if the numbers are padded.

I would like the economy to improve because I'm among the long term unemployed/underemployed, and millions of people are in this same boat or even worse off.

What I would not like, however, is the administration creating a false sense that the economy is improving, just in time for * to get reelected on a "strong economy" platform.

The only reason any attention is being given to job growth or the economy right now is because we're going into an election year. * has all but flipped the bird at the average American worker for the past three years, why should we believe that he suddenly gives a shit now?

And why should we believe that any economic gains now (if they are in fact real) would carry into his second term (if that happens)? He has shown over and over again that he doesn't give a shit, and he wouldn't give a shit during a second term either.

[Sideways]

42. Hey Duck Great Post

Welcome to DU and good to hear such a sound mind in action!

You're right in the end BUSH just does not give a shit as he has never given a shit and will not give a shit EXCEPT the shit he lays on Americans porch each and every day.

BUSH THE NEW AMERICA'S SHIT EXISTENTIALIST.

[Mokito]

57. Chocolate rations up 300% !!

Very eerie.

[kayell]

60. Very eerie indeed

The more time I spend living under the * regime, the more convinced I am that they read 1984 as a plan, rather than as a caution.

[Maeve]

6. Perspective

What you are not going to see is the number of jobs needed per month to make up for the @ 3 MILLION lost since Dubya took office.

Hint: 126,000=more than two years and that doesn't handle the number needed for true growth

[treepig]

9. more perspective

under clinton, there were 230,000 new jobs created each and every month (on average).

so, even this "surge" lags far behind the average month in the clinton years

[KAZ]

13. Even more perspective.

Hey, I'm happy it's up, but here's how a similar number was greeted in '98.
http://www-tech.mit.edu/V118/N56/jobs.56w.html


Premature Release of Poor Jobs Data on Internet Spooks Markets

In a miscue that echoed through the financial world Thursday, government officials released October jobs data on the Internet a day ahead of schedule, revealing a disappointing gain of 116,000 jobs and a U.S. unemployment rate holding steady at 4.6 percent.


-snip

[VolcanoJen]

54. LMAO - "Disappointing" morphs into "Surge"

That's some good stuff, KAZ!

[ozone_man]

69. Fantastic find. I guess we're grasping at straws now. n/t

[HFishbine]

18. Yeah but

in terms of public perception and its possible effects on the election, does Shrub really need to make up for all the jobs lost or will it be enough for him to simply be able to say that jobs are growing. I think if he can say jobs are groing, that will be enought to take the economic issue off the table.

One caveat: interest rates/inflation

[KAZ]

19. There needs to be fairly significant job growth.

"Stay the course" didn't work too well for the old man.

[jonoboy]

7. and do they count part-time jobs ?

which is one of the new scams. ie if a person works just a few hours a week they get counted as employed.

[doppledang]

35. No scam

In my state, New York, you can get paid for unemployment if you work less than 20 hours in a week, and can remain on the rolls until you get steady work. I don't know if this is what the feds track, but I would guess so.

If there are lousy techniques used for measuring employment, it would likely show up in the households' survey, which is doing so much better than the employers' survey, Republicans are pushing use of it instead of the employers' survey.

The Democratic message has got to be based on something other than complaining about a bad economy... the jobs issue *is* going to go away. And the 1998 elections showed that trying to leverage scandal into an issue is a loser, also.

The last Democratic tide was 1986. What happened that year?

[Sideways]

44. Exactly how is the JOB issue going to go away?

Sorry this Dem is going to keep complaining about the bad economy because that is the fucking reality.

Glad you understand that the loss of jobs is a scandal although I'm sure you were trying to make a different point.

I think the loser here just might be...err ..um..cough...

And what tide are you floating out on?

No scam indeed. BARF!!!

[papau]

8. Seasonal adjustments changed this year - but still a good report

A good number - but still increasing unemployed - as 127,000 does not cover population growth. Once military rotates back - if they rotate back with a lower reserve/guard call up - we may see a drop in "job creation"


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

Technical information:
Household data: [phone] USDL 03-675
http://www.bls.gov/cps/

Establishment data: 691-6555 Transmission of material in this release is
http://www.bls.gov/ces/ embargoed until 8:30 A.M. (EST),
Media contact: 691-5902 Friday, November 7, 2003.


THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION: OCTOBER 2003


Employment rose in October, and the unemployment rate, at 6.0 percent, was essentially unchanged, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 126,000 in October,following a similar increase (as revised) in September. Job gains occurred inseveral service industries in October. Manufacturing employment continued to
decline, but the rate of job loss has moderated in recent months.


Perhaps we should remind ourselves that in Feb 2003 the DOL changed all the seasonal adjustments - so anyone want to compare last year to this year?

From Feb 2003:
http://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_notice02.htm Several major changes affect the Current Population Survey (household) dataThese include the use of new population controls that reflect Census 2000 results and new information about net migration, the use of new questions about race and Hispanic ethnicity, the introduction of new industry and occupation classifications, improvements in the seasonal adjustment processes, and the annual update of seasonal adjustment factors. For all data series, these changes affect the comparability of theJanuary 2003 estimates with those for earlier months. Additional detail is provided in the release at http://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_notice02a.htm

Several major changes affect the Current Population Surveyhousehold) data Revisions and additions have been made to the A tables of theEmployment Situation. Several series have been affected byconceptual changes or new standards for presenting data. Thechanges are described in the release at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

Last Modified Date: February 07, 2003

[Don_G]

10. Reservists Skewing The Numbers?

How much is that "job growth" is to replace the National Guard Reserves being sent overseas in their civilan jobs?

[Maine-i-acs]

11. Employed by Making Bradleys ...

and pimping cheap chinese plastic at WalMart.

Still no manufacturing or tech job growth. Farming and fisheries in the crapper too.

I'll keep waiting for good news, thanks.

[TexasPatriot]

12. honestly i'm glad

i was really afraid. Bush* had poured a MASSIVE keynesian stimulus into the economy - it was supposed to have kicked in 2 months ago to the tune of 200,000 jobs a month - but we werent seeing it. That said one of 2 things - either it really really wasnt working and something really basic was broken in the models, or there were so many job cuts that they were offsetting any gains made by the massive influx of govt borrowed cash.

Now, of course, the problem is that these jobs are really a prime the pump thing - and we have to hope that they actually get the economic engine to turn over this time. We've had 2 cold starts in the last 3 years - and Bush* pretty much threw the kitchen sink at it this time. I, personally, dont see it - and i dont hear anything good on the horizon - but I really hope it gets better.

[KoKo]

14. Independent contractors heading to Iraq? War jobs? Who's hiring? Anyone

know?

[Mari333]

15. No jobs in this town

manufacturing jobs left years ago during Rayguns trickle down...the old factories here bought up by greedy developers, recycled into condos for the rich, who come up in the summer and drive around in Porsches and Ferraris...summer, the only jobs are minimum wage, and sucking tourist *ick , to be blunt...that means shining their shoes and smiling a lot YASSUH MASSAH...
Its pretty bad in the winter. People barely get by , even worse now..poor of all races here...just poor....crime rate, drug use increasing, just absolute depression of spirit here. Nothing, no jobs, nothing in the winter. The rich went back to Chicago, or bought second homes here and drove up the taxes for many..now many people who were middle class, as with every town, are selling out their houses...
The very rich and the very poor....and nothing in between...so goes this town, so goes the country, it seems.

[Spazito]

16. Are the jobs that are now going overseas to India, etc, part of the

job growth number? It seems to me that as long as it is a US company, they can report the number of jobs created including those created outside the US. Someone on another thread commented that Bill Moyer had a program on this.

[Quahog]

17. I doubt this is going to help

When it comes to the economy, I believe voters are more attuned to their own bank accounts and what's happening in their own communities. I live in a very middle-class suburban neighborhood of nice, fairly new colonial houses in RI. There are about 60 houses in our development, and six of them are currently for sale. I know for a fact that three of the six are due to loss of employment; I'm not sure about the other three. One of the three that's employment related is owned by a husband and wife who are both police officers. They have had cuts in hours which have forced them to sell and scale down their lifestyle. Also, the houses that are on the market now have been there for at least a couple of months. Two years ago, realtors weren't even bothering to put signs in the lawn except as self-promotion... the houses sold the second they went up on the MLS (we sold ours in 5 days, and got $40k more than we were originally asking).

Other things I'm noticing: lots of stores in strip malls going out of business, especially card and gift shops and other specialty boutiques. If anything is taking their place, it seems to be karate studios and Family Dollar stores. Retail development in the area is pretty much at a stand-still; a recently completed small office building in my town of Coventry remains empty several months after the "For Lease" signs went up.

I'm glad if 126,000 more Americans are working. But taking the pulse of my own community, I have to say things are still very much on a downward slide.

[Beetwasher]

20. Massive Economic Propoganda

Be prepared to see an incredible amount of economic propoganda over the coming year to make it seem like the economy is doing just fine. Don't expect any REAL jobs to materialize though. Expect crowing about numbers from cooked books or just completely fabricated.

Prosperity is just around the corner.

[jmcgowanjm]

22. Exactly, Beetwasher, except substitute "for past year"

This jobs report is BS, w/ noone believing it.
And as Peter Stark-who just reemed Kudlow's
ass- stated, the economy's dead in the water,
talking about programmers from Silicon Valley
getting the "new" jobs selling Tshirts in WalMart
that are made in China, and that have destroyed
textile jobs in this country.

All the TVeconomists are nonplussed.
One guy from the bondpits is telling Schaffler
on CNNFN that he thinks someone pushed
the wrong button. That's the REASON that bonds
aren't selling off.

PULEASE!

[realFedUp]

21. Funeral parlor directors?

:eyes:

[jmcgowanjm]

24. if the economy was growing the way these DataManipulators said

we'd be looking at a situation rivaling the '50's
and early 60's.

It ain't happenin'.

[Snellius]

25. Bush will have a tough time justifying another tax cut

Will a reviving economy help Bush as much as Larry Kudlow assumes? No doubt, it will take the issue off the table for the Democrats but, considering the price paid in terms of the national debt, it will not be a major winning advantage for Bush either. It may just take the issue off the table so that he will have to concentrate on even more embarassing concerns.

It will be ironic when Bush loses if he loses for just the opposite reasons as his father.

Besides, what Shrub Inc. is really after is a flat tax and they'll have a harder time justifying further cuts when conditions are moderately improving, especially with rises in inflation and interest rates which increasing growth will probably mean.

[CO Liberal]

27. They Opened THAT MANY Fast-Food Places Last Month?

:-)

[0007]

28. After all the oranges and grapes are picked...

will the number start going up again? Or is un-employment insurance running out?

[jiacinto]

29. Maybe I can get one of those jobs

nt

[J. Hill]

30. Scabs?

I heard someone say the increase may be due hiring scabs because of the grocery lock-outs in Southern California, St. Louis, etc.

Does that sound reasonable?

[doppledang]

36. A small factor

It's true, but it is a small factor... a few percent of the total rise.

[KAZ]

43. Small?

"Strikes by grocery workers in Missouri and California actually added about 15,000 to 20,000 jobs in October, as both striking workers and their replacements were counted."

http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?guid=%7B236C2A63%2D4FC8%2D4FA1%2D8A64%2DA12D0EA29923%7D&siteid=mktw

[J. Hill]

53. About 10%

The BLS report says about 13,000 jobs were scabs. That's a little more than 10% of the total. Not as much as I thought.

Some of the other numbers were interesting. Temporary services were up about 17,000. That could be an indicator of growth.

Government employment moved from Federal to State and Local; Fed down 25,000 and State up 35,000. About 21,000 of the increase in State and Local was local education. I don't understand that. These are seasonally adjusted numbers so back to school hiring should have been booked already. I wonder what it was.

[wabeewoman]

71. I'm surprised at state employment being up

Most of the state government departments aren't hiring and even cities have hiring freezes on. Schools are really hard hit and I can't imagine that much increase unless there were strikes or they are counting the part time workers as new jobs. Personally I don't trust an administration that lies about everything else. Why should we believe these figures? I just read that they changed the way they are reporting unemployment figures using the most favorable data. And quite frankly, I wouldn't put it past them to outright lie. But I don't think people will buy it if they aren't seeing it for themselves. Of course, I just heard on the news that the administration wouldn't be answering any questions about the budget or budget process from Democrats.

[Blue_Roses]

31. Geeze.. that interesting considering

Southwest Airlines just laid off thousands in Little Rock, Arkansas.

[Yavin4]

32. 125K is no Surge!!

The economy needs to create 200K-300K before real hiring starts.

What you're really seeing is people swallowing their pride and taking McJobs or survival jobs. They're taking what's out there, but it's not paying them nearly what they've been paid in the past.

Does this help Bush? Sure does. He's the master of lowered expectations. He doesn't have to have a great economy, just a good enough economy so that his media whores can start trumpeting how great he is.

[wetbandit2003]

33. I think

That 125K jobs added to the pay roll is a significant spike.....

[Yavin4]

34. No, It's Not

A normal healthy economy adds about 200K per month.

This is like a student who gets nothing but "Fs" on his tests, suddenly gets a "D" and the entirely family heads off to Chucky Cheese.

[PlanetBev]

38. You wanna to super-size that order?

Big whoop...

[silverchair]

39. LOL

good analogy:-)

[saigon68]

59. NOW YOU KNOW OUR PARENTING SECRET

Triple Cheese please.

Brought to you from Wisconsin.

[lancdem]

48. It depends on your perspective

Considering we were losing jobs practically every month before the last quarter, it is a "spike." But it's a slow month compared to the '90s.

[Melinda]

37. 13,000 of these "jobs" went to Scabs - So. Ca. Grocers Union Strikers...

Hardly permanent employment - right? Right? :eyes:

[KAZ]

45. Actually 15K-20K. See post #43 n/t

n/t

[Melinda]

46. Goodness gracious

Missouri too? Have you any hard figures?

[Purrfessor]

40. Where, exactly, were these jobs created?

Is it possible that the labor dept has adopted a new definition for "jobs created," defined as: jobs created overseas can now count toward domestic job creation when payroll for said jobs is derived from American corporations?

[drfemoe]

41. It reminds me of "enriched white bread"

That is you take out all the natural vitamins and fiber and spray the white flour with a few chemical vitamins and call it ENRICHED!

Or someone pulls all your teeth and gives you four false teeth .. now your mouth has been enriched with four teeth ..

ya uh huh

[tokenlib]

47. Growth in the "service" sector. Retail like Wal-Mart??

We are screwed!

We lose all these good manufacturing jobs with good pay and benefits. Service sector shit like Wal-Mart and temporary jobs with low wages and no benefits spike and Bush gets an economic bump.

It's time once again to call the man a deceitful liar. If this news takes the economy off the political issues table as the corporate news outlets are proclaiming--it is a betrayal to working people all across America.

Our candidates need to rip away the facade of these numbers to expose the dismal reality of the huge gap between rich and poor, the rampant under-employment, the substitution of crap sector jobs for good living wage employment, and the trend which will still be disastrous even if the economic "indicators" show otherwise.

[banana republican]

49. Krugman

Krugman's editorial on Oct. 31 in the NY Times indicated that Bushco might be playing with the economic numbers. He had noticed a trend where very favorable numbers had been annoounced on the regularly scheduled release dates; only to be reversed by very unfavoriable numbers a few weeks later.

[area51]

51. CNN: "Does the drop in joblessness mean the U.S. economy is recovering?"

The CNN website has a poll that asks: "Does the drop in joblessness mean the U.S. economy is recovering?"

CNN

I don't buy this "recovery" sh*t either; if we were really having a recovery, all of us unemployed people would be able to get good-paying jobs. No matter how much George W. Hoover wants it, his bogus nos. are not going to fool people into believing that their empty wallets are full again, & they will "vote their wallets" & vote him out of office.

[demgrrrll]

52. Notice that there is no definition in the figures. No notation of how

many jobs were temp jobs, how many jobs had benefits, how many were part time with no benefits, etc. The strip malls around me look like ghost towns. Stores are closing left and right and nothing new is going in. This is another Buscho scam-o-rama.

[VolcanoJen]

55. CNN said "The jobless recovery has now become an afterthought."

That's the way the anchor reported it at the top of the hour.

Amazing, isn't it?

[0rganism]

58. They get one less-bad quarter, and suddenly we're off to the races

Putrid spin of the lowest sort.

[moondust]

65. It's pathetic.

Flipping past Faux I heard a guy say that the Dem candidates can no longer criticize Bush for not creating jobs. Smells like desperation to me.

[moondust]

62. Holidays are coming.

Beef up inventories, stock the shelves, train the checkers. Seasonal, temporary.

[gasperc]

63. here's the labor report, read close, most jobs created were low paying

and at least 150,000 a month are needed just to keep the jobless rate from increasing due to population growth.

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

<snip>
"Professional and business services added 43,000 jobs in October, following an increase of 70,000 in September. Professional and technical services con-tributed over half of the job gain (24,000) in October, with its management and technical consulting services component adding 7,000 jobs. Within administrative and support services, employment in temporary help services continued
to trend up in October.
***** Since April, temporary help has added 150,000 jobs.******
<snip>
In the financial sector, employment in credit intermediation, which includes mortgage banking, fell by 10,000, reflecting the decline in mortgage refinancing activity.
After a small increase in September, employment in air transportation
was down over the month. Since reaching its most recent peak in March
2001, the industry has lost 138,000 jobs.

[ozone_man]

68. Right, we're still hemoraging, just not as badly.

I see the manufacturing jobs as the key indicator, and it's still negative.

The U.S. is leading in exports in one catagory, unfortunately, it's manufacturing jobs. Well, actually, the service jobs exported to India are in close competition with manufacturing jobs exported to China.

[wabeewoman]

72. Ok so professional and business jobs were down

27,000, credit intermediation fell by 10,000, air transportation fell but temporary help services were up. Employment rate was unchanged. 2 million unemployed people were still looking for work.The civilian labor force was little changed. And 1.6 were unemployed but weren't counted because they didn't look in the last 4 weeks. So exactly what new jobs were created??? Temp jobs, some food service jobs and maybe counting the national guard twice. If civilian labor force wasn't changed, doesn't that imply it was military?

[belab13]

64. Malwart must be hiring eom

[durutti]

70. 126,000 is Bad

It's only about half the number expected for a normal recovery.

[Yavin4]

73. Tell That To Bush's Fawning Media Whores

These Media Whores are like bad parents. Anything that their little angel does right, they immeadiately start bragging about it. Hey whores, just because your little angel got a "D" on his exam, it doesn't mean that he's going to be the valedictorian.