Reclaiming Common Sense

Another Misunderstood Jobs Report

Record December Level December Men and Women Working


Last week we received the first wave of the final economic reports for 2019. We received the December ADP Private Sector Payroll Report, Weekly Unemployment Claims Data, and the December Employment Situation Report. The December ADP report surprised on the high side.

  • The December Employment Situation Report was moderately good, with a record level of December Workers (Current Employment Statistics - CES) and a record level of December full-time jobs (Current Population Survey - CPS.) This was covered in the article "Dec. Jobs Report: Santa's Surprise."
  • All sectors grew December to December except Mining and Logging. All sectors received wage increases, including Mining and Logging. This was all covered in "Dec. Wages and Workers - Annual Gains Across the Board."
  • President Trump has created more full-time jobs during his first 35 months in office than former Presidents Reagan, Clinton, George W Bush and Obama created during their first 35 months in office - singularly or collectively - during their 140 months. He and former President Clinton were the only Presidents to create full-time jobs and cut unemployed workers during their first 35 months in office. This is covered in "Five Presidents at 35 months."

The Five Presidents article has discussed the "Jobs Mountain" since the series was "Four Presidents at __ Months."Former President Obama left office with fewer full-time jobs during January 2017 than we had during July 2007, nine and a half years earlier. July 2007 was the peak "jobs month" prior to the Great Recession. The jobs mountain exists for men and women. How is the "Battle of the Sexes" going this month?


We have a December record level of men and women working total jobs this December. We saw a loss of 14.442 million full-time jobs between July 2007 and January 2010. It took until the Summer of 2015 to recover all of those lost full-time jobs, before we loss them again. The full-time jobs were recovered again, during the Summer of 2016 before they were lost again. We have 7.9 million more full-time jobs this December than we had during July 2007. We also have 3.8 million more part-time jobs that we had during July 2007. 


Men have  1.765 million more full-time jobs and 2.162 million more part-time jobs than they had during July 2007. There has been a modest increase in full-time jobs for men December to December with 215,000 new full-time jobs. An additional 813,000 part-time jobs have been created for men during the past year.


Women have added 6.159 million new full-time jobs and 1.104 million new part-time jobs since July 2007. Women did not lose as many jobs as men lost during he Great Recession. They also started the recession with fewer full-time jobs than men. Women have added 1.185 million full-time jobs and have trimmed 191,000 part-time jobs during the past year.  Men have added a net 1.028 million jobs during the past year. Women have added 994,000 jobs during the past year. Women have added full-time jobs. Men have added primarily part-time jobs.


Are there more women working than men this December? There have been reports that women exceed men in the workforce:

There are more women in the workforce population than men. There are more men working than women according to the non-seasonally adjusted Current Population Survey data. There are 83.468 million men working full-time jobs or part-time jobs. There are 75.036 million women working full-time or part-time jobs. There are more men working than women.


Men are participating at a higher rate than women.Men work more full-time jobs than women. Women work more part-time jobs than men.

  • Men 73.470 million FT 9.998M part-time jobs
  • Women 57.672 million FT 17.364 million PT jobs
  • Men are participating at 68.73% with a 3.51% unemployment rate
  • Women are participating at 57.70% with a 3.19% unemployment rate.
  • There are 125.852 men in the workforce population
  • There are 134.329 million women in the workforce population

The Devil is in the data.


Another way to examine the data is by the number of multiple job holders in the workforce. We  saw a near record level of Dual Job Workers for the month of December at 8.058 million workers. We saw a near record level of people working a Full-time job and a Part-time job at 4.419 million workers. We saw a near December record of 2.072 million workers working dual part-time jobs. We saw a near December record of people working two full-time jobs at 336,000 people.

  • Men worked 3.972 million total dual jobs. There were 2.377 million FT PT workers, 727,000 PT PT workers and 221,000 FT FT workers, with the remaining workers working either "PT FT" jobs or variable hour workers.
  • Women worked 4.086 million total dual jobs. Women worked 2.041 million FT PT jobs, 1.334 million PT PT jobs, and 115,000 dual FT workers.

Men worked more dual FT jobs than women. Women worked more PT PT jobs than men. The graphics can be found here.


The data this month was very good for men and women. There are a record number of men working right now. There is a record number of women working right now. The gap between the number of men working and women working is narrowing, according to the Current Population Survey (CPS) data. Last month we had an upward surprise. This month dipped a little bit. It was still a good month.


It's The Economy.