Economy Lost Full-Time Jobs
Yes, you heard that right, the economy lost full-time jobs. While the federal government is reporting “blow-out” job gains, the reality is the jobs are all part-time. Full-time jobs have decreased. Have you had to take a pat-time job due to inflation? Have your hours been decreased?
According to a new report from the federal government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics in April for March, the US economy added 303,000 jobs for the month of March while the unemployment rate fell slightly to 3.8%. In what has become a familiar pantomime, reporters from the legacy media were sure to declare this a “blowout jobs report“. An in-depth study of the job market shows what is really going on.
This report showed, however, that the jobs economy continues to follow a pattern that began in December of last year. Full-time jobs are disappearing and the “job growth” reported so enthusiastically by the media is virtually all part-time jobs. Moreover, nearly a quarter of new payroll jobs are government jobs. If we look more closely at this report, what we really find is that the total number of employed persons has fallen by nearly 400,000 jobs in four months and that 1.8 million full-time jobs have disappeared over the same period.
A few important graphs:
The establishment survey report shows that total jobs—both part-time and full-time—increased, month over month, in March by 303,000. The establishment survey measures only total jobs, however, and does not measure the number of employed persons. That means that even when job growth comes mostly from people working multiple part-time jobs, the establishment survey shows big increases while the total number of employed persons does not. In fact, total employed persons can fall while total jobs increases.
This may help explain why there is a sizable gap between the establishment survey and the household survey since early 2022. If we look at the total increase in both measures over the past three years, we find a gap has opened and persisted over more than two years. Indeed, as of the March report, the gap is at 3.5 million. The household survey also shows that total employed persons has been virtually unchanged for eight months. Since August 2023, total employed persons has decreased by 34,000. Over the same time period, total “jobs” has increased by more than 1.7 million. Since November, total employed persons has fallen by 400,000.
A harbinger of recession?
The full-time jobs indicator now reflects what we’ve seen in temporary jobs for months. For decades, whenever temporary help services are negative, year over year, for more than three months in a row, the US is headed toward recession. This measure has now been negative in the United States for the past seventeen months.
