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Why No Wage Increases: More Than Half Of Jobs Added In February Were Lowest-Quality, Lowest-Paying
It has become a running joke: month after month after month, the punditry says wages hikes are coming... they are coming any second, just be patient. And month after month the punditry refuses to accept the simple reason why not even the BLS' goalseeked data does not permit this long awaited wage surge to take place - simply said, the quality of jobs (or rather "jobs" as these are all merely 1s and 0s that only exist in some BLS spreadsheet) added every month is absolutely atrocious, so bad that not even the BLS' actuarial tables allow its goalseek program to attribute higher wages to the "jobs" it creates out of thin statistical air.
Ironically moments ago US labor secretary Thomas Perez said that the "quality of jobs is going up."
No it isn't, as anyone who spends even two minutes with the BLS report can find out.
Don't have two minutes? Here is the full breakdown. As the chart below shows, the three biggest single-category jobs added in February (because Professional services includes numerous occupations), were also the three lowest quality, lowest paying ones:
- Leisure and Hospitality, added 66K jobs
- Education and Health added 54K
- Retail trade added 32K
Together these three job categories accounted for 152K jobs, or more than half the total February job gains. They also represent the lowest paid jobs in the US.
And that's why there is no wage increase.
All this in chart format.
Source: BLS
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"Leisure and Hospitality, added 66K jobs"
Apparently all of those credit card offers are being used to go on vacation. Who really hasn't said "I'm sick of this shit, I'm outta here" lately?
More like a single mom of three working nights at the mall....
When all the jobs are 20 hour part time jobs and your working 3 jobs to pay the rent your helping the economy.....prole.
Is McDonalds a low pay job? Maybe I should get a SNAP card instead.
That entirely depends on how often your youtube account is visited and what kind of patrons you can tempt into flying off the handle.
AMERICANS WILL NEVER SEE A PAY RAISE BECAUSE WE ARE IN A GLOBAL ECONOMY.
GLOBALIZATION HAS BEEN VERY BAD FOR AMERICAN WORKERS !!
Globalization has been bad for all workers.
Heh, made a spreadsheet the other day, charted my net income for the past 11 years(same tech company). Of those 11 years only once did my take home pay exceed a 3% increase and that was the year I stopped contributing to my 401K. All other years were either flat or less then 1% increase. Last two year it has been negative. All but two of the 11 years I received at least a 3% cost living raise.
welcome to the 2 class progressive society.
"
The Government-programmed mass financial media gleefully reported this morning that the “jobs recovery” continues as the Government is telling us that 295,000 jobs were produced in February and the employment rate dropped to 5.5%. Unfortunately, those headline statistics are complete Orwellian propaganda. In fact, as I will demonstrate using the same payroll report used to derive the headline numbers, the employment situation in this country continues to get worse by the month.
The table below comes from the Bureaus of Labor Statistics actual employment report (BLS – Household Data Table A-1) - please click to enlarge:
I’ve highlighted the most important data. According to the Government’s own statistics, the working age population (“civilian noninstitutional population) grew by 176k in February BUT the number of people in the labor force declined 178k. The labor force participation rate once again declined to 62.8% – a level of employment as a percent of the working age population not seen since the late 1970’s. This is the definition of an employment depression.
According to the Government’s own numbers per the household survey above, the number of people employed increased by 95,000. BUT the number of people “not in the labor force” increased 354,000.
Those are the relevant numbers that need to be examined and debated. Not the statistically manipulated garbage that the Government feeds into the media headlines. The employment situation grows worse by the day in this country. Several hundred thousand oil industry workers have already been fired this year. Hewlett Packard just announced 54,000 job cuts. IBM is cutting over 100,000. Both of those totals are for the global operations but a significant number will occur in this country.
As just one example of the Government lies embedded in the headline statistics, the BLS is reporting that construction added 29k jobs. Yet, we found out yesterday that construction spending plunged 1.1% in January (Wall St. was expecting a .3% gain). Retailers supposedly added 32k jobs in February. Yet, we know that several retailers filed chapter 11 in January/February. This list goes on.
If you have not watched it yet, this is a must-see short video by John Titus of Bailout Films which explains in detail how the monthly Government payroll report is a complete farce: The Fed Is Blowtorching The Economy With QE.
The bottom line is that the Government’s non-farm payroll report has zero credibility. Moreover, it grows more absurdly fraudulent by the month."
http://investmentresearchdynamics.com/
Wowza! Thanks "Kaiser" for the link...
Ya'll gotta see the UTube vid "blow torching the Economy with QE"...
Hard evidence that the REAL unemployment rate...37% !!!!
I knew my ass hurt....now I know why.
You're being entirely too rational about all these employment numbers. Go visit Boston and chill out.
First, shoveling snow is now considered employment, even if you're shoveling your own snow. Employment in the Northeast his 100% in the month of February. (It may have been even higher; I'm not certain if retired people shoveling snow were considered employed.)
Second, building snow forts for the kids has been deemed to be a construction job. Of course there were 29K construction jobs added. (Krugman should be happy, because eventually those snow forts will melt and have to be replaced.)
Third, the retailers had to add workers to handle all the demand for snow shovels, salt for the sidewalks, etc. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, those workers will be redeployed rather than laid off in the coming months.
So quite being logical. See the bright side! BULLISH!
This is great news! By throwing those useless eaters (and their families) into the gutter like yesterday's garbage, their former salaries can be used to buyback stock and raise the EPS. The resulting EPS boost will lead to increased bonuses for senior management that in turn will let them trade in their 100 foot yachts for 200 foot yachts. That will eventually lead to a boom in employment for 27 hr/wk yacht builder serfs. Good times ahead.
speaking of retail
most big boxes since the recession no longer report monthly sales ... of the few that do, The Gap by far the biggest in the "rag" industry
comparable same store sales for february
expected ... +1.4%
actual ... -4.0%
http://www.gapinc.com/content/gapinc/html/media/pressrelease/2015/med_pr...
Must keep the illusion of prosperity going but not limited to large box stores. I warned my plumber that he may notice limited supplies and that I wanted to purchase a goulds well pump to put on my shelf for a rainy day. Being that he would know exactly what model I would need he purchased it for me. He was surprised that it was the last one on the shelf at the large plumbing distributor. Like a slow moving train wreck this collapse is happening.
Easier to use dirt cheap labour than invest in expensive capital.
What's the surprise? It's been education and health creating the bulk of jobs for 35 years.
And yet the quality of both education and healthcare continues to decline. Only in America...
Welcome to the spin machine.
There is no doubt this website is a Goldman invention to muppet some folks.
Au contraire, you fucking asshole Bernanke...
I wish Tylers would be quiet about this because the Fed will shift to saying "we're not going to raise interest rates until the quality of jobs has improved".
I already saw mainstream headlines something like "Jobs added but quality questioned", so those media fuckfaces are already getting their talking points.
Details,details, details, it's all about juicing the market.
given its tax time, many are finally realizing/being told to cut the 35+hour/week people to 27 to avoid having so many full timers for ACA.
is there a stat for average hours worked in each of these areas? hospitality for example, is the average workweek 25 hours?....yet it is considered an addition to 'payrolls'.
while this idea is easily accpeted by ZH, can anyone put up some of the more explicit gory details of all these new jobs....and perhaps even compare them to the avg hours trend from 2005/2006 to really drive it home??
These numbers such arbitrary lies, it's comical.
I live in Massachusetts, which is almost exactly an average size state by population. So, we should have gained about 1/50 of those jobs. That would be about 1300 new jobs last month in leisure and hospitality. Uh . . no. Every month when they come up with these arbitrary lies they pick a category, seemingly at random, in which they claim there were big job gains. Often it was restaurants. If what they claimed was true we'd be awash in new waiter, bus boy and maitre de jobs here in Massachusetts as well as around the country and the truth is that there aren't any new places opening up here.
As Rick Santilli said and these low paying jobs are expected to pay off the trillions of dollars the Fed has pumped into Wall Street???
Santelli
Sort of a worrying trend. Laborforce flows.
Employed to NILF...I assume most are retirees. But last 2 times the uptrends lead to recession.
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=13as
Additionally the flows of unemployed to employed have slowed dramatically....which seems to contradict the BLS jobs gains numbers a bit.
This decline typically is a signal just before a recession.
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/LNS17100000
Thanks for the Technicals.
God Bless I hope they all make it to the big time. I look forard to all of their NYT best seller on their struggles of climbing the corprate ladder while breaking glass ceilings and over coming a racist corporate environment.
No middle class jobs,,, no middle class. 2+2=4
Our POS government decided to screw America and americans when opting for globalization,,, thinking THEY would be the 'new orders' leader. Well, turns out the other two powers didn't see it that way.
Now all that America has left is a absurdly large military with no economy to back it. Sure, they can make click money but soon their worthless dollar won't be as almighty as it was. Daily, one can see Merika's death throe's with all her threats, lies and posturing but the fat lady will soon sing.
And when she sings, reality is gonna strike gullible americans in the nut sack. It won't be pretty.
Would you rather be an employed Chinese national that is dying from environomentally-induced cancer or an American free-shitter?
At this point I almost think I'd prefer living in the matrix, since those folks mostly thought they were relatively free. The reality I perceive grows worse say by day.
I just got a job as an assistant crack-whore, so I'm getting a kick out of these comments.
the answers to a couple of my questions from earliers with only a little bit of time spent researching.
Nov 2007 vs March 2015
Total Employed persons: 139,566,000 139,443,000 YES + 123,000 jobs in 7 yrs!
Avg wage non-suprivsry 17.63/hr 20.99/hr YES +2.44% annualized
far far short of any inflation measure
Total hours worked/week 33.8 34.6
Avg Hours Hosp/Leisure 26.4 26.4 match 11/07 all time high
Ed/Healthcare 32.8 ??
Retail 31.4 ??
Conclusion is the same....most job growth is far from 40hrs/week in low wage areas.
Nice numbers. That 2.44% annualized is probably right around the official numbers.
Of course the *real* numbers are a whole other enchilada.
Folks I think TPTB are literally down to buying time in DAYS! The desperation landscape is measured day by day and whichever looks worse gets the big lie of the day. All reports today whether Trade Deficit, BLSBS, Labor Participation Rate, Not to exclude the drop of 14% of Registered inventories on the Crimex Gold ummm great coincidence in timimg there by Scrotum Bank BTW, are measured and the most important one is given the Pig makeover and a special lie is fabricated big enough to over shadow all other bad news and allow the Crooked Banksters to rape and pillage the markets with total impunity.....Wash Rinse and Do it again tomorrow, next week, month as long as they can.
Netting out to..the economy swirling the drain is smaller and the residual is fast losing mass.....take some time today to look at your resilency and add to it. Time is truly growing short and the end of Potemkin Village USA fast approaching in the rear view mirror.
Hard to measure the "bigness" of lies translated into $$$$ of real income. So the lies are going to get bigger and bigger.
It is a great but apparently elusive moment when a person who has been believing the lies suddenly thinks:
"If things are supposed to be getting better and better, why am I still eating a shit sandwich?" And does not take it as a personal failure, but a failure of "others".
Its all make believe!! Its all make believe!! A survey, that's seasonally adjusted, that's revised, at a later date. In this day and age where everything is monitored instantly, we still call people and business, use a birth death rate of people and businesses, to come up with a completely arbitrary number. Work 10 hours last week well you're employed. Not in the workplace, well we won't count you. Its all make believe, and remember, a job is a job. Part time, full time, making a $80,000 or $20,000 a job is still a job.
Michael Boskin, "potato chips or computer chips, a jobs a job." Yep that about sums it up. A good paying career with benefits, or a part time gig with none. At some point in the near future receiving benefits will be considered a job.
Just to add to the fun, "leisure and hospitality" are the sorts of jobs in which single mothers and the "diverse and vibrant" are most favoured. A living wage isn't a big necessity for most of them. Being a member of the FSA has its rewards, doncha know.
Hey, a job's a job. But don't take my word for it. Obama told me so.
Because you're being shystered by your government through their "data".
The deliberate outsourcing of America's good-paying manufacturing and white collar jobs has devastated the dwindling majority's income and hope for the future.
California imports foreign guest workers to process unemployment claims
A U.S. visa allows people to come to the country for high-tech jobs. Feb. 24, 2015 News10/KXTV
American tech employees forced to train H-1B replacements
http://washtech.org/news/industry/display.php?ID_Content=5363
Another tech-worker, Diane Drozdowski, was forced out of her job at American Express in Phoenix, AZ. After her manager used "bully tactics and psychological warfare" to try to get her to quit, resulting in a mental breakdown, she was replaced by two Indian workers based in India. American Express flew these Indian workers to Phoenix and forced her to train them, upon threat of losing her severance pay.
Been there done that. Trained them wrong so they went back and fucked everything up. They were so green they had no way to know I was screwing them over.
And these jobs are pie-in-the-sky, "made up" numbers based on the BSS's "birth/death" model, which I highly doubt has ever been changed to reflect the reality of 2015.
Clearly we need a $20 minimum wage. Then we'd all be rich. Right.......??