Back in February Zero Hedge was first to point out [3]that while jobs may be growing (modestly) and the unemployment rate declining (rapidly, on the back of all those leaving the labor force), it was the quality of jobs that was troubling. Indeed, as today's NFP report once again showed, the average hourly earnings [4]barely budged at $23.38 from $23.37 last month, and in fact declined on an inflation-adjusted basis. Why? Because as we predicted both in February (and in 2010 [5]) the US is increasingly becoming a population of part-time workers, as full time jobs disappear for good, and are offshored abroad at best. April confirmed everything we had been warning about: in the month, full time jobs dropped to 114,478,000 from 115,290,000 an epic drop of 812,000 in full time jobs which was the biggest since... March 2009! The offset? Why a surge in part-time jobs of course, which increased by 508,000 in the month of April. So while seasonally adjusted, birth/death recasted jobs may have increased by 115,000, the real quality jobs, imploded, which unfortunately is merely a part of a longer-term secular trend as part of the new part-time normal.
Full-time jobs and sequential change (full time [6]):
[7]
Part-time jobs and sequential change (source [8]):
[9]
And a longer-term view:
[8]
P.S. this is the last post on today's abysmal NFP report. We promise.