[lbo-talk] US employment

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Fri Apr 1 10:57:56 PST 2005


Pretty disappointing US jobs report this morning - just 110k new jobs, with Feb's gain revised down. The long-term average would be about 220k, and the long-term expansion average (excluding recession periods, that is) is around 360k. Gains weren't broadly distributed across industries, either. Factories lost jobs - as did temp firms, not a good sign. (Temp employment frequently leads broad employment trends.) Wages gained slightly after stagnating last month, but now they're just keeping up with inflation rather than lagging it. The household survey numbers looked better - unemployment dropped to 5.2%, the employment/population ratio (EPR) rose 0.2 points (but is still well below its 2000 peak). But there too, gains weren't broadly distributed; women did worse than men, and most educational groupings were flat or down on their EPRs.



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