Economic Jolt: Job Openings and Labor Turnover October 2011

Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released their latest monthly read of job availability and labor turnover (JOLT) showing that private non-farm job “openings” declined 3.20% since September climbing 13.55% above the level seen in October 2010 while private non-farm job “hires” declined 2.65% from September and rose 5.64% above the level seen in October 2010

Job “layoffs and discharges” declined 6.92% from September falling 2.61% below the level seen last year while quitting activity declined 3.56% from September remaining 9.85% above the level seen in October 2010.

It’s important to understand that job “quits” are included as a component of the “separations” data series as “quitting” is a valid means of workers “separating” from employers but their inclusion tends to create an overall procyclical trend in what would otherwise be logically thought of as a countercyclical process (i.e. downturn leads to increase in separations not decrease).

Extended Unemployment: Initial, Continued and Extended Unemployment Claims December 08 2011

Today’s jobless claims report showed notable declines to both initial and continued unemployment claims as a slight rising trend was firmly called into question for initial claims.

Seasonally adjusted “initial” unemployment declined 23,000 to 381,000 claims from last week’s revised 404,000 claims while seasonally adjusted “continued” claims declined by 174,000 resulting in an “insured” unemployment rate of 2.8%.

Since the middle of 2008 though, two federal government sponsored “extended” unemployment benefit programs (the “extended benefits” and “EUC 2008” from recent legislation) have been picking up claimants that have fallen off of the traditional unemployment benefits rolls.

Currently there are some 3.30 million people receiving federal “extended” unemployment benefits.

Taken together with the latest 3.16 million people that are currently counted as receiving traditional continued unemployment benefits, there are 6.47 million people on state and federal unemployment rolls.

On The Stamp: Food Stamp Participation September 2011

As a logical consequence of the prolonged economic downturn it appears that participation in the federal food stamp program is continuing to rise.

In fact, household participation has been climbing so steadily that it has far surpassed the last peak (which looks like a minor blip by comparison) set as a result of the immediate fallout following hurricane Katrina.

The latest data released by the Department of Agriculture shows that in September, an additional 430,434 recipients were added to the food stamps program increasing 7.82% on a year-over-year basis while household participation increased 9.81%.

Individual participation as a ratio of the overall civilian non-institutional population has increased 7.04% over the same period.

Participation continues to increase with nominal benefit costs climbing a lofty 9.08% on a year-over-year basis to $6.26 billion for the month.

Envisioning Employment: Employment Situation November 2011

Today’s Employment Situation Report indicated that in November, net nonfarm payrolls increased with private nonfarm payrolls adding 140,000 jobs and the unemployment rate declining to 8.6% over the same period.

Net private sector jobs increased 0.13% since last month climbing 1.74% above the level seen a year ago but but remained a whopping 5.09% below the peak level of employment seen in December 2007.

On The Margin: Total Unemployment November 2011

Today’s Employment Situation report showed that in November “total unemployment” including all marginally attached workers declined to 15.6% from the prior month's level of 16.2% while the traditionally reported unemployment rate also declined to 8.6%.

The traditional unemployment rate is calculated from the monthly household survey results using a fairly explicit definition of “unemployed” (essentially unemployed and currently looking for full time employment) leaving many workers to be considered effectively “on the margin” either employed in part time work when full time is preferred or simply unemployed and no longer looking for work.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics considers “marginally attached” workers (including discouraged workers) and persons who have settled for part time employment to be “underutilized” labor.

The broadest view of unemployment would include both traditionally unemployed workers and all other underutilized workers.

To calculate the “total” rate of unemployment we would simply use this larger group rather than the smaller and more restrictive “unemployed” group used in the traditional unemployment rate calculation.

Extended Unemployment: Initial, Continued and Extended Unemployment Claims December 01 2011

Today’s jobless claims report showed an increase to both initial and continued unemployment claims as a slight rising trend was firmly called into question for initial claims.

Seasonally adjusted “initial” unemployment increased 6,000 to 402,000 claims from last week’s revised 396,000 claims while seasonally adjusted “continued” claims increased by 35,000 resulting in an “insured” unemployment rate of 3.0%.

Since the middle of 2008 though, two federal government sponsored “extended” unemployment benefit programs (the “extended benefits” and “EUC 2008” from recent legislation) have been picking up claimants that have fallen off of the traditional unemployment benefits rolls.

Currently there are some 3.52 million people receiving federal “extended” unemployment benefits.

Taken together with the latest 3.37 million people that are currently counted as receiving traditional continued unemployment benefits, there are 6.89 million people on state and federal unemployment rolls.

ADP National Employment Report: November 2011

Today, private staffing and business services firm ADP released the latest installment of their National Employment Report indicating that the situation for private employment in the U.S. improved in November as private employers added 206,000 jobs in the month bringing the total employment level 1.73% above the level seen in November 2010.

Looking at the chart (click for full-screen dynamic version) showing ADP’s total private nonfarm payrolls since 2001 as well as the year-over-year and month-to-month percent change, you can see that while the job recovery had been anemic throughout most of 2010, more recently the trend had been picking up momentum.

Although the level of jobs is still far below the peak seen in late 2007 and still near the lows seen during the worst period of the "dot-com" recession, the bottom looks to be clearly defined and the trend is looking comparable to past recoveries.

Perusing the rest of the data in the ADP dataset you can see the the economy is currently showing the most growth for small to mid-sized service providing jobs with goods-producing jobs remaining near trough levels.

Look for Friday’s BLS Employment Situation Report to likely show somewhat similar trends.

University of Michigan Survey of Consumers November 2011 (Final)

Today's final release of the Reuters/University of Michigan Survey of Consumers for November indicated improvement in consumer sentiment with a reading of 64.1 but falling 10.47% below the level seen last year while one year inflation expectations went flat at 3.2%.

The Index of Consumer Expectations (a component of the Conference Board's Index of Leading Economic Indicators) rose to 55.4, and the Current Economic Conditions Index climbed to 77.6.

It's important to recognize that consumer sentiment has seriously eroded over the past few months with the current results remaining near levels not seen since 1980, a major indication that consumers are in the process of tightening even further on spending.

Extended Unemployment: Initial, Continued and Extended Unemployment Claims November 23 2011

Today’s jobless claims report showed an increase to both initial and continued unemployment claims as a slight rising trend was firmly called into question for initial claims.

Seasonally adjusted “initial” unemployment increased 2,000 to 393,000 claims from last week’s revised 391,000 claims while seasonally adjusted “continued” claims increased by 68,000 resulting in an “insured” unemployment rate of 2.9%.

Since the middle of 2008 though, two federal government sponsored “extended” unemployment benefit programs (the “extended benefits” and “EUC 2008” from recent legislation) have been picking up claimants that have fallen off of the traditional unemployment benefits rolls.

Currently there are some 3.45 million people receiving federal “extended” unemployment benefits.

Taken together with the latest 3.17 million people that are currently counted as receiving traditional continued unemployment benefits, there are 6.63 million people on state and federal unemployment rolls.

Massive Unemployment: Mass Layoffs October 2011

The latest release of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Mass Layoff Report indicated a decline in large-scale layoffs with 1353 mass layoff events for October resulting in 118,689 initial unemployment claimants on a seasonally adjusted basis.

The BLS considers a mass layoff event to be a condition where there are at least fifty initial claims for unemployment insurance originating from a single employer over a period of five consecutive weeks.

Massive Unemployment: Mass Layoffs September 2011

The latest release of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Mass Layoff Report indicated a decline in large-scale layoffs with 1495 mass layoff events for September resulting in 153,229 initial unemployment claimants on a seasonally adjusted basis.

The BLS considers a mass layoff event to be a condition where there are at least fifty initial claims for unemployment insurance originating from a single employer over a period of five consecutive weeks.

Economic Jolt: Job Openings and Labor Turnover September 2011

Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released their latest monthly read of job availability and labor turnover (JOLT) showing that private non-farm job “openings” increased 6.75% since August climbing 23.01% above the level seen in September 2010 while private non-farm job “hires” increased 5.26% from August climbing 10.24% above the level seen in September 2010

Job “layoffs and discharges” climbed 3.47% from August climbing 7.91% above the level seen last year while quitting activity increased 2.33% from August and 12.19% above the level seen in September 2010.

It’s important to understand that job “quits” are included as a component of the “separations” data series as “quitting” is a valid means of workers “separating” from employers but their inclusion tends to create an overall procyclical trend in what would otherwise be logically thought of as a countercyclical process (i.e. downturn leads to increase in separations not decrease).

Envisioning Employment: Employment Situation October 2011

Today’s Employment Situation Report showed that in October, net nonfarm payrolls increased slightly from September with private nonfarm payrolls adding just 104,000 jobs and the unemployment rate remaining flat at 9.0% over the same period.

Net private sector jobs increased 0.10% since last month climbing 1.69% above the level seen a year ago but but remained a whopping 5.25% below the peak level of employment seen in December 2007.

Recovery-less Recovery: Unemployment Duration October 2011

Be sure to bookmark the "Scary Unemployment Dashboard"... it's live.

Today's employment situation report showed that conditions for the long term unemployed improved in October and remained epically distressed by historic standards.

Workers unemployed 27 weeks or more declined to 5.876 million or 42.4% of all unemployed workers while the median number of weeks unemployed declined to 20.8 weeks and the average stay on unemployment declined to 42.4 weeks, a new high for the series.

Looking at the charts below (click for super interactive versions) you can see that today’s sorry situation far exceeds even the conditions seen during the double-dip recessionary period of the early 1980s, long considered by economists to be the worst period of unemployment since the Great Depression.

On The Margin: Total Unemployment October 2011

Today’s Employment Situation report showed that in October “total unemployment” including all marginally attached workers declined to 16.2% from the prior month's level of 16.5% while the traditionally reported unemployment rate went flat at 9.0%.

The traditional unemployment rate is calculated from the monthly household survey results using a fairly explicit definition of “unemployed” (essentially unemployed and currently looking for full time employment) leaving many workers to be considered effectively “on the margin” either employed in part time work when full time is preferred or simply unemployed and no longer looking for work.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics considers “marginally attached” workers (including discouraged workers) and persons who have settled for part time employment to be “underutilized” labor.

The broadest view of unemployment would include both traditionally unemployed workers and all other underutilized workers.

To calculate the “total” rate of unemployment we would simply use this larger group rather than the smaller and more restrictive “unemployed” group used in the traditional unemployment rate calculation.