Job Revisions

• The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for October was revised up by 44,000, from +610,000 to +654,000
• The change for November was revised up by 91,000, from
• +245,000 to +336,000.
• With these revisions, employment in October and November combined was 135,000 more than previously reported.

Part-Time Jobs

• Involuntary Part-Time Work: -471,000 to 6,170,000
• Voluntary Part-Time Work: -343,000 to 18,237,000
• Total Part-Time Work: -456,000 to 24,917,000
• Total Full-Time Work: +397,000 to 124,689,000

Employment Reporting Silliness

These numbers never add up correctly. I list them as reported.

Unemployment Rate – Seasonally Adjusted - Long Term

Nonfarm Payrolls

The above chart puts a much-needed perspective on the recovery.

• Jobs are up 12,339,000 from the lows.
• Jobs are still 9,839,000 from the pre-covid highs

Hours and Wages

Average weekly hours of all private employees fell by 0.1 hours to 34.7 hours. Average weekly hours of all private service-providing employees fell 0.1 hours to 33.7 hours. The average weekly hours of manufacturers was flat at 40.2 hours.

Average Hourly Earnings of All Nonfarm Workers surged $0.23 to $29.81.

This is a statistical mirage related to 498,000 leisure and hospitality workers losing their jobs, raising the average.

Year-over-year, wages rose from $28.37 to $29.81. That's a gain of 5.1%.

The month-over-month and year-over-year gains are very distorted because more higher-paid workers kept their jobs than lower-paid employees.

Average hourly earnings of Production and Supervisory Workers surged $0.20 to $25.09.

As noted above, this is also a statistical mirage related to 498,000 leisure and hospitality workers losing their jobs, raising the average.

Year-over-year, wages rose from $23.84 to $25.09. That's a gain of 5.2%.

For a discussion of income distribution, please see What’s “Really” Behind Gross Inequalities In Income Distribution?

Birth Death Model

Starting 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.