Retail Trade Jobs Show Weakness in Otherwise Healthy Jobs Report

(Click on image to enlarge)

Change in nonfarm payrolls from the BLS

BLS Jobs Statistics at a Glance

Details from the monthly BLS Employment Report.

• Nonfarm Payroll: +390,000 to 151,682,000 - Establishment Survey
• Employment: +321,000 to 158,426,000- Household Survey
• Unemployment: +9,000 to 5,950,000- Household Survey
• Baseline Unemployment Rate: unchanged at 3.6% - Household Survey
• U-6 unemployment: +0.1 to 7.1% - Household Survey
• Civilian Non-institutional Population: +120,000 to 263,679,000
• Civilian Labor Force: +330,000 to 164,376,000 - Household Survey
• Not in Labor Force: -211,000 to 99,302,000 - Household Survey
• Participation Rate: +0.1 to 62.3% - Household Survey

Revision Details

• The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for March was revised down
• by 30,000, from +428,000 to +398,000
• The change for April was revised up by 8,000, from +428,000 to +436,000. 
• With these revisions, employment in March and April combined is 22,000 lower than previously reported.

Economists' Estimates 

• Nonfarm Payrolls: 325,000 expected vs 390,000 actual
• Unemployment Rate: 3.5% expected vs 3.6% actual
• Manufacturing Payrolls: 38,000 expected vs 18,000 actual 
• Hourly Earnings: +0.4% expected vs 0.3% actual

The above estimates from Bloomberg Econoday. 

Payrolls were a bit stronger than expected. Manufacturing employment, the unemployment rate, hourly earnings, and manufacturing payrolls were a bit weaker than expected.

Part-Time Jobs

• Involuntary Part-Time Work: +295,000 to 4,328,000
• Voluntary Part-Time Work: +20,000 to 20,806,000
• Total Full-Time Work: +733,000 to 132,800,000
• Total Part-Time Work: -325,000 to 25,766,000

The above numbers never total correctly. I list them as reported.

Unemployment Rate – Seasonally Adjusted

Unemployment rate data from the BLS, chart by Mish

Nonfarm Payrolls and Employment Levels

Payroll and employment data from the BLS, chart by Mish

Recovery Synopsis

• The employment level and jobs have nearly recovered all losses.
• Employment is down by 440,000
• Jobs are down by 822,000
• The numbers do not reflect increasing population or the type of job recovered.
• The red and blue dotted lines show the still significant impact Covid has on the economy.

Change in Nonfarm Payrolls Since February 2020

Change in nonfarm payrolls from BLS

Leisure and Hospitality is still down by 1.3 million workers. Education and Health Care is down by 340,000 workers.

Professional services are humming. Trucking is now slowing dramatically but it's lumped in with warehousing. 

Hours and Wages

Average weekly hours of all private employees was unchanged at 34.6 hours. Average weekly hours of all private service-providing employees fell 0.1 hours to 33.5 hours. Average weekly hours of manufacturers fell 0.1 hours 40.4 hours.

Average Hourly Earnings of All Nonfarm Workers rose $0.10 to $31.95

Year-over-year, wages rose from $30.36 to $31.95. That's a gain of 5.2%.

Average hourly earnings of Production and Supervisory Workers rose $0.15 to $27.33.

Year-over-year, wages rose from $25.67 to $27.33. That's a gain of 6.5%.

Despite the gains, wages have not kept up with inflation.

Birth Death Model

Starting in January 2014, I dropped the Birth/Death Model charts from this report.

For those who follow the numbers, I retain this caution: Do not subtract the reported Birth-Death number from the reported headline number. That approach is statistically invalid.