The August Jobs Report Received a Lukewarm Reception

Record Level of Men and Women with Jobs -  Ignored

The August Jobs Report was strong and weak at the same time. The article "August Jobs Report Reveals Record August Jobs Level"  revealed that seasonally adjusted workers grew in all sectors August to August. It also revealed strong seasonally adjusted Current Population Survey Jobs growth, as well as the best CPS participation since August 2013 and the lowest August Unemployment Rate since 1969. The headline worker data was weaker than expected, except when you consider that all sectors have more workers than they had last August and all sectors received a pay raise from last August.

There was month to month growth in all but three sectors: Leisure and Hospitality (LAH,) Other Services (OS,) and Mining and Logging (M/L.) There was August to August growth in all sectors. This was expected. This was covered in "Aug. to Aug. Growth in All Sectors."

President Trump has overseen the addition of 9.1 million full-time jobs. He has also cut the unemployment level while President. Only Former President Clinton and President Trump have been able to cut unemployment and boost full-time jobs during their first 31 months in office, since President Reagan. President Trump's accomplishments are compared with former Presidents Reagan, Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama in the article "Five Presidents at 31 Months: Full-time vs Total Jobs."

It's the Economy.

This column has identified the "Jobs Iceberg" and the "Jobs Mountain." There was a huge drop in Current Population Survey (CPS) Full-time Jobs and the creation of part-time jobs during the period of time from July 2007 to January 2018. When the "War on Women" narrative was raised during the Presidential Election of 2016 this column analyzed the FT and PT jobs data broken down by gender, male and female. Some trends have been persistent and consistent. Men lost more FT jobs than women. Women recovered their lost FT jobs faster than men. This column will look at hose situations plus the Multiple Job Holder situation.

There are more men working than during any other August. Men often see their peak month for CPS jobs, non-seasonally adjusted,  during the month of July. Men lost 10.6 million full-time jobs between July 2007 (pre-recession peak) and January 2010 (low of the recession.) It took men until the Summer of 2016 to recover all of those lost full-time jobs for the first time. It was not until February of 2018 that all of the lost FT jobs were recovered and maintained. Men have added 3.2 million new FT jobs and 1.4M new PT jobs since July 2007 for 13.3 million more potential workers, roughly 4.6M total jobs. The unemployment level has dropped from 3.6 million to 3.1 million since August of 2007. It is important to note that men have only added 453,000 FT jobs and 161,000 PT jobs since August of last year.

There are more women working this August than during any other prior August. The current trend is that FT jobs are replacing PT jobs. Women "only" saw the loss of 3.85 million full-time jobs between July 2007 and January 2010. Women recovered faster than their male counterparts, recovering all of the lost jobs by March 2015. Women have added 1.33 million FT jobs than they had last August, and 66,000 fewer part-time jobs.

Participation is still down for men and women compared to August 2007. Men were participating at a rate of 73.47% during August 2007 versus 69.46% during August of 2019. Women have seen their participation rate drop from 59.20% to 57.38%.

The Unemployment  rate is down for both men and women. Men have seen their unemployment level and their unemployment rate drop from 3.6 million to 3.1 million and from 4.32% to 3.53%. Women have seen their participation drop from 3.5M to 3.1 million and from 4.96% to 4.07%.

Participation Matters. If we were participating at the same rate that men and women were participating during August of 2007 then there would be 5 million more men working and 2.4 million more women working - or unemployed. Participants are those who are working FT jobs, PT jobs, or those who are officially unemployed. These 7.5 million workers are neither working nor unemployed. They are effectively unemployed. This means that the effective unemployment rate is 8.80% for men and 73.01% for women. We have 483,000 more men and 769,000 more women working this year than they "would be" working if we had the same participation rate as last August.

Men work more full-time jobs than women. Women work more part-time jobs than men. This has been consistent for a very long time. You will also note that there are 133.951 million women in the workforce population and 125.481 million men in the workforce population. This trend is also present in the multiple job workers data. Men work 3.951 million dual jobs while women worked 4086 million dual jobs this August. Men worked 2.498 million FT PT jobs while women worked 2.083 million FT PT jobs. Men worked fewer dual PT jobs with 675,000 versus 1.282 million for women. Men worked more dual FT jobs than women with 202,000 versus 134,000.

A second job is the ultimate form of unemployment insurance. The U-3 unemployment rate and the Continuing Claims level have both men falling as more people go from unemployment to employment. They are also dropping because if a dual job worker loses one job then they are "lesser employed" not unemployed. This means that the unemployment rate and the continuing claims data could continue falling for an extended period of time.

Most August Multiple Job Workers ever. There were 8.038 Million multiple job holders (MJH) or multiple job workers this month. We had 7.5 million MJH last August. We normally see a jump in MJH during July, followed by a decline in August. We then see our annual best during the Christmas Shopping Season, with peak MJH during October, November, or December. We had the most August  FT PT jobs workers and  the second most August PT PT workers with 4.581 million FT PT workers and 1.957 million PT PT workers, respectively.

Last year we had 8.09 million multiple job workers during October and 8.03 million multiple job workers during December. Last year's peak was during February 2018 with 8.1 million MJH. We had over 8 million MJH workers during October, November, and December of 1999. We have had as many as 8.494 million MJH during November of 1996 and 8.307 million during November of 1998.  We could easily hit 8.1 or 8.2 or even 8.3 million MJH this year.

The August 2019 Employment Situation Report, or Jobs Report, was better than it was reported. The CPS jobs and unemployment data,  which data set this article used, was better than the CES worker and wage data. WE have a record August level of men working, a record level of August Women working, and an August record level of multiple job workers. This data was very good.

It's the Economy.