The Tale of Two Data Sets (Part 4)
Men, Women, and Multiple Job Workers on the Rise
The February jobs report was misreported in the mainstream media. The headline was that there were only 20,000 non-farm payroll "jobs" creates during February. The problem is that this is not true. The Current Employment Statistics data used for the headline value measures workers. The Current Population Survey (CPS) data measures jobs and unemployed workers. The CPS data recorded over 1.2 million non-seasonally adjusted (NSA) combined full-time and part-time jobs added to the economy during February. This is how the worker data came in weak and the participation and unemployment data came in strong.
This column has already published a number of articles regarding the February Jobs Report:
- "February Jobs Report: 1.2 Million Jobs or 25,000 Workers Added" compared the NSA CPS data (1.2 million jobs) and the SA CES (25,000 Private Sector Workers. It was a fabulous, remarkable, jobs report.
- "February Wages and Workers: Wow" examined the sector by sector growth in workers and wages compared to February 2018. The average weekly wage, NSA, was up 3.44% while the workforce population grew by 1.93%, NSA, from February 2018. This means the total earning power rose by 5.11% during the time from February 2018 to February 2019.
- "Five Presidents at 25 Months" compared President Trump's accomplishments with those of former Presidents Reagan, Clinton, George W Bush, and Obama after their first 25 months in office." Only former President Clinton and President Trump managed to cut unemployment and add full-time jobs simultaneously. President Trump has added more full-time jobs than his predecessors, combined.
The question is why does this recovery and expansion not receive the notice that it has earned? How are men and women doing?
There was a "War on Women" during the 2012 election cycle. There were "binders full of women" that Republican Presidential candidate, now Senator, Romney had in his office. This column, and its companion site "Reclaiming Common Sense," detailed the "Jobs Iceberg" that had formed between July 2007 and January 2010. Full-time jobs were lost and part-time jobs were added, creating a two tome iceberg similar to the "icebergs" for men and women. The 2016 election brought back the "War on Women" conversation when candidate Fiorina made a comment that "92% of all the jobs lost under President Obama were occupied by women." If anything, 72% of all jobs lost belonged to men. Men lost 10.421 million full-time jobs. Women lost 3.849 million full-time jobs.
The Male Jobs Iceberg is finally a Jobs Mountain. There were fewer full-time jobs for men from August 2007 through July 2016 than they had during July 2007.Men occassionally went positive during the Summer of 2016 and the Summer of 2017 before going negative during December and January. This January, January 2019, was the first January where we had more full-time jobs than we had during July 2007. Men had the most combined full-time and part-time jobs this past Summer, July 2018, than they had ever had. Now, as of February, there are more jobs worked by men than any prior February.The Unemployment level, technically, is lower than it was during February 2008. There is a significantly different participation rate for men compared to February 2008, 688.86% versus 72.40%. This means that we are "missing" 4.4 million participants. Participants are employed or unemployed workers.
The Female Job Mountain continues growing. Women recovered from the Great Recession faster than men. Women recovered all of their lost full-time jobs by the Spring of 2015. They have had record employment months, combined full-time and part-time jobs, for much of 2017 and 2018. The female participation rate is approaching the level that it was during February 2008 with a rate of 57.51% compared to 59.05%. Where we are "missing" 4.4 million male workers we are "only" missing 2 million female workers.
Men are working more full-time jobs than women. Women are working more part-time jobs than men. If you look at the tables there are 72 million men working full-time jobs compared to 56 million women. There are 17.8 million women working part-time jobs compared to 9.5 million men. There are seasonal differences between men and women working full-time jobs and part-time jobs. Both job mountain histograms indicate that the workforces are growing. Women have a head start on the recovery and expansion. Men have a head start of full-time jobs.
Men added more FT jobs than women added, while women added more part-time jobs than men added this month. Men added 447,000 FT jobs and 66,000 PT jobs compared to women who added 223,000 FT jobs and 468,000 PT jobs. Men added 513,000 compared to the 691,000 total jobs for women.
The Effective Unemployment rates are higher than the official unemployment rates. Missing participants are not calculated in the U-3 unemployment rate and appear to be missing from the official U-6 unemployment data. It was proposed under the Obama administration that the drop in the participation rate was due to a drop in working Baby Boomers. The argument was that Baby Boomers were retiring and still being counted in the workforce population. They could not explain the graying of the workforce. They could not explain the "employment donut hole" for those 45-59 years of age. The effective unemployment rate is over 9% for men and over 6% for women. Full-employment is normally considered to be when we have an unemployment rate under 5%. Women are approaching full-employment while men have a long way to progress.
The Number of Multiple Job Workers is off the February Record Levels of 2018. Multiple job workers are those who are counted as having a Full-time job and a part-time job, two part-time jobs, or two full-time jobs. There are also some who may be working more than two jobs, We had over 8 million dual job workers during February 2018 when we set a record for the month at 8.103 million dual job workers when it was reported last march. There were also 4.425 million people working a full-time job and a part-time job. This February we "only" had 7.823 million MJH. There were 3.846 million men working multiple jobs and 3.904 million women working multiple jobs.
We eclipsed 4.5 million workers working a full-time and a part-time job during February for only the second time. We had 4.502 million FT PT or PT FT workers during February this year. The first time this happened was February 1993. There is an anomaly where the combined number of dual full-time workers (FT FT,) plus the number of dual part-time workers (PT PT) plus the number of people working two full-time jobs (FT FT) does not equal the total number of multiple job workers (MJH or multiple jobholders.) Even when you add in the "variable hour workers" it doesn't equal the total MJH. It is possible that there are those who make less at their full-time job than they do from their part-time job. These are the PT FT workers. There were 2.399 million men who worked FT PT or PT FT compared to 2.053 million women.
The differences in full-time and part-time jobs between men and women are also seen in the multiple job worker data. There were 0.636 million men who worked two part-time jobs compared to 1.243 million PT PT women. Conversely, there were 0.066 milion women who worked two full-time jobs compared to 0.188 million men who worked FT FT.
The CPS data indicates that women recovered their lost full-time jobs faster then men. It may because they lost 7 million fewer full-time jobs than what men lost between July 2007 and January 2010.Recent worker expansion, using the CES data, indicate that sectors that are typically male dominated sectors, Construction, Manufacturing, mining and Logging, Professional Business Services, and Information Technology are adding more workers than they have been adding during the "Male Worker Ice Age." There are more women in the workforce than there are men, so it makes sense that they added more total jobs this month than men added between January and February. Both genders are winning.
It's the Economy.