Seasonally Adjusted Manufacturing Jobs Fell - This was a concern to some.
Non-Seasonally Adjusted Government Workers rose by 980,000 - Ignored.
The monthly jobs report is created using two data sets that are rarely in sync: the Current Population Survey (CPS) jobs and unemployment data and the Current Employment Statistics (CES) wages and workers data. Each data set is seasonally adjusted with seasonal factors that change month to month, season to season, and year to tear. They are seasonally adjusted because January and September are "unbelievably" bad, non-seasonally adjusted, and March, April and May are "unbelievably" good, non-seasonally adjusted. Some months down is up. This is one of them. The first article "Sep. Jobs Report: Unemployment Down, Part-time Jobs Up" started the conversation. This article takes a closer look at the CES data.
The Non-seasonally adjusted CES private sector worker level was expected to drop between 0.21% and 0.49% between August and September. The NSA CES contracted at 0.48%. The real contraction was 618,000 private sector workers. This contraction was comparable to the 616,000 during September 2018 and the 619,000 lost during September 2017.
September is one of the months for which seasonally adjusted data was "created."
The seasonally adjusted data showed an increase of 136,000 private sector workers. This is in addition to the upward revision from 130,000 workers added to 168,000. The private sector number was reported at just 96,000 workers and is now 130,000. The addition of 34,000 workers to the August data means that his month could have been reported at 180,000.
The seasonally adjusted data revealed that all but one sector grew September to September, and that one sector was unchanged. The Sector that was unchanged was Manufacturing.The Month to month data showed that all but two sectors grew this September. Other Services (OS) fell by 3,000 workers. Manufacturing fell by 2,000 workers August to September. The thing to notice here is that Manufacturing added 117,000 seasonally adjusted workers September to September. Manufacturing has been growing since 2016.
- September 2019: 12.884 Million
- September 2018: 12.772 Million
- September 2017: 12.504 Million
- September 2016: 12.383 Million
- September 2015: 12.395 Million.
Manufacturing has added 501,000 NSA manufacturing jobs since September 2016. The seasonally adjusted data shows that we went from 12.344 Million SA Manufacturing workers to 12.850 million seasonally adjusted workers., or 506,000 more SA manufacturing workers.pared to last September. The concern over a manufacturing "contraction" is not well founded.
We are still positive for non-seasonally adjusted workers compared to last September. We are still climbing the Workers Mountain. This column, and its sister site "Reclaiming Common Sense" discovered that here was a Jobs Iceberg under former President Obama. The article "2-10 Rate Inversion is not the best indicator of a recession" identified the Jobs Recession Indicator was a better indicator of potential recessions. The same can be said about the private sector worker data. We had 11.371 million fewer private sector jobs during January 2010 as compared with July 2007, the peak CPS jobs month. The annual peaks are peaking higher than the trend line would predict. The January lows are not dropping as low as the other trend line would indicate. We are not having a Jobs Recession nor a Worker Recession.
Hourly Wages were at all-time record highs for 9 out of 10 sectors this month. These were not just September records, they were all-time records for hourly wages. The Non-seasonally adjusted average hourly rate improved from 1.55% to 6.08% depending upon sector. The data has to be properly weighted with the number of workers working at those average hourly wage.
Hours worked increased by 1.36%. The hours worked dropped September to September for Manufacturing, Trade, transportation and Utilities (TTU,) Financial Services (FIRE,) Leisure and Hospitality (LAH,) and Other Services (OS.) It is important to note that Mining and Logging (M/L,) Construction and Manufacturing are still working in excess of 40 hours a week, on average. It is also important to note that hours worked, already at part-time levels, fell September to September even though wages rose by nearly 5%.
When hours worked and hourly wages increase Income Increases at a higher rate than either of them alone. Total income increased by 2.54% to 6.63% depending upon sector. There were seven sectors that saw hours remain unchanged from last September or decrease where total wages rose. The growth rate of total wages was great than the increase in workers for each sector. This is real growth.
This report was a good report. We had September to September improvement in hours worked, for most, hourly wages "for all," and growth in all but one sector. Construction, Manufacturing, and IT still have not returned to their September 2007 level. All three sectors have been on an upward climb, including IT.
How is President Trump doing compared to his predecessors? That will be addressed in "Five Presidents at 32 Months."
It's the Economy.