This morning the actual number came in at 263,000 jobs lost last month. Worse than the worst of economists' estimates, and a heck of a lot worse than the median prediction. Most likely, this number will be revised in the next month or two and will look even worse still, as that's what usually happens.
Of course, these numbers are the finagled, "adjusted" numbers. The government uses the "birth-death model" (meaning the birth or death of businesses) to change the estimate. Much later, after certain tax data has become available, they can tell us whether their adjustments got us any closer to the truth. Well, the government thinks that from March 2008 to March 2009 we actually lost 824,000 more jobs than their "adjusted" estimates had thought. So you can bet that this 263,000 figure is considerably too rosy, as well.
Karl Denninger has looked at some of the unadjusted data (all emphasis his):
But the Household Data is VASTLY worse than reported. Here are the month-over-month changes, and they're in the realm of frightening. (all numbers in thousands)
Civilian Labor Force: 154,879 to 153,617 this month.
Employed: 140,074 down to 139,079 this month.
That's a loss of 995,000 jobs, not 263,000, and the labor force contracted by 1,262,000 people!
The participation rate was absolutely decimated, down 0.6% this last month alone. The people "not in the labor force" rose by a staggering 1,516,000 in the last month.
The government doesn't count people as "unemployed" who have given up and exited the labor force, but as I have repeatedly noted, whether the government counts them or not, the corner store owner sure as hell does!
The fact of the matter is that nearly 1 million fewer people were working in September as compared to August; there has been absolutely no improvement in that trend whatsoever.
It also turns out that average hours worked per week (among those lucky enough to be employed) fell another tenth of an hour, with a corresponding small decline of $1.54 in average weekly income. It's a tiny decrease per individual, but multiply that by 140 million workers and you get $216 million per week which is no longer available for consumer spending. That income loss does not count the unemployed; that's the income loss per week among those who still have jobs.
To have a real recovery the working and middle classes must have larger incomes, which means we must have higher wages and less unemployment. That means we must produce more. No more "service economy" or "post-industrialist economy" nonsense.
(It's true that there's one other way to become wealthier as a nation, and that's to simply loot and plunder other nations. But I think America's days as an empire are coming to an end, so that's out.)
No other choice but to grow things, mine things, and make things.
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