Written by Michael Thervil
Everyone wants to look good and that includes American President Joe Biden. In the latest job numbers report from September 2023, it was reported that an estimated 336,000 jobs were created and filled. For many people that may sound like a lot; especially since many people in the United States know at least 2 people that are currently unemployed due to whatever reasons. But the thing that people have understand is how the job report numbers are not only calculated, but how “being employed” is defined and when these jobs are being calculated.
It should be noted that many people in the United States, including college graduates are severely underemployed, and for those that are employed in some form or fashion; most are not even working in the field for the degree that they graduated from college for. That’s a topic for another article. However, the job numbers for September 2023 stated that: “336,000 jobs were added” to the workforce, percentage wise this comes out to roughly 3.8%. As we stated again in our previous article concerning job reports, the jobs that were created mainly consisted of Retail and Service Sector Jobs that people, if given the choice, wouldn't even work.
But with the reported employment gains in America, there comes a big caveat. And that caveat stems from the fact that the jobs that were reported in the report stemmed mostly from the ending of various workers strikes that have been going on this year (consisting of roughly 300 strikes of 450,000 workers respectively). The Writers from Hollywood that were on strike went back to work and most of the Auto Workers who too were on stake are getting back to work as well. That is the reason why the job numbers spiked and yielded a false positive in the jobs market. Keep in mind that the previous month only 170,000 jobs were “added”. Again, these jobs are what we like to call “Junk Jobs” that nobody really wants and consist primarily of Retail and Service Sector Jobs.
As stated above, another factor that you must consider when the government receives and releases the job number report, is dependent upon the timing of when employment numbers are reported. Many of the payroll records that were turned into the government (Bureau of Labor Statistics) reported the payroll period of September 12th, but there’s a significant difference in the amount of people who were working when before and after the UAW (United Auto Workers) Strike and other strikes that were going on before and after September 15th. This lends credibility to the claim that the Hollywood Writers’ Strike also played a part in misconstruing the job numbers report as well as the other various reported strikes that started around the nation the month prior (July 2023).
To be fair, the numbers roll out as they roll out; meaning that employers have no control of when the government takes their projected numbers from their reports to provide to the President. So maybe the blame is not all theirs to take. But the one thing that most people can agree on is that the job market and the U.S. workforce in general will continue to look bleak with no sunshine in the foreseeable forecast.
Comentários