Seeing 379,000 non farm jobs exceeded the 49,000 jobs from the previous month and exceeded the private ADP report of 177,000, despite their different methodology, but gives pause for a recovery, although most economists and academics are saying that it will be 2024 as the latest date for a full recovery, with February 2020 as the baseline.
The Hill reported this from the White House: "If you think today's jobs report is "good enough," then know that at this pace (+379,000 jobs/month), it would take until April 2023 to get back to where we were in February 2020," White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain Tweeted.
With nearly 10 million Americans still out of work, the report underscored the damage done to the US economy from Covid 19 and also the residual damage done to all levels of employment, where even if coping, is doing far less with more stringent demands, the most obvious for those working from home, is Zoom fatigue, but for service workers, especially those in the leisure and entertainment department, survival.
The unemployment rate took a slight drift from 6.3 to 6.2 and that particular change is the focus on the overall picture, than just the headline number, which includes those that have given up looking, or don’t feel that there is anything that either they like, or pays enough money to meet basic needs, especially housing which has increased in most major cities, but extended to smaller regions outside of New York Chicago, and Los Angeles.
Recently, Janet Yellen, now Treasury Secretary, in agreement with Federal Reserve Chair, Jerome Powell, and noted, according to The Wall Street Journal, that 6.3 percent is in reality “if properly measured in some sense, is really close to 10 percent.”
Powell added that “Published unemployment rates during Covid have dramatically understated the deterioration in the labor market.”
Of course all eyes are on the 1.9 billion Covid relief bill passed by the House, and awaiting final votes from the Senate. This legislation from President Joe Biden has the ability to not only offer targeted relief, says the White House, but also to help with support for state and local governments, as well as food assistance and extended unemployment benefits to help lift many American from the brink of economic collapse the pandemic has created.
Looking at some of the more concerning areas, leisure and hospitality and retail and manufacturing; helping these industries, and the corresponding cadence of shuttered bars and restaurants, and dwindling customer base with a lifebelt is a necessity.
Complicit with that, is the good news, that much of that increase from February came to the leisure and hospitality field with 355,000, a welcome jump.
The Republicans have voiced their opposition to the bill and its attendants, but have offered few alternatives; but one fear is that the bill will increase inflation well above the 0.2 % target, the Federal Reserve’s mandate.
As everyone knows we are well below that target and “anxiety about inflation is at a fever pitch, among economists and in markets where long term interest rates have been grinding higher.”
Added to the Biden bill is that his encompassing bill will cause policy makers to focus less on priorities towards inflation, noted the Journal, but also taking a new direction: “accepting and even being enthusiastic about higher inflation,” said Larry Summers, former advisor to Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
The road to recovery is still long and Powell has told all that any rebound from the recession has a long way to go, and the Fed’s growth policies including “rock bottom interest rates and large scale bond buying,” according to The New York Times.
“Even though we saw job gains pick up, it’s clear that many Americans don’t feel comfortable returning to work,” Julia Pollak, an economist at the online job site, Zip Recruiter commented to them. “To her, the report’s most striking feature was the small number of workers — just 50,000 — who rejoined the work force last month.”
Labor force participation rang in at 75.5 %, up from 0.5 percent to 0.7%
On the human scale there is a paradox of people who want work, and are not finding it, in contrast to those who are not enthusiastic about returning to work, with some facing child care, which as we saw last month, has decimated women in the workplace.
Overall labor force participation for women is 5.9% from Last month’s figure of 0.6%, an even further departure from earlier months; and, for women of color 8.5% drop compared to white women at 0.5%.
“Unemployment rates for Black women,” Kristen Broady, a fellow in economics studies at the Brookings Institution and policy director of the think tank’s Hamilton Project said in an interview with CNBC, “are more likely to have a college education, are typically lower than those for Black men. But the unique nature of the Covid recession and resulting childcare issues have disproportionately impacted Black women’s ability to work.”
“In other recessions, children were still in schools,” said Broady. “If you can’t afford child care and are a single mom, you can’t go to work. And that’s more likely to affect black and Hispanic women.”
Powell has noted previously that there is a supportive role for the federal government “might help pull more women into the labor market,” in late February, also reported by the Times, and that better child care is an “area worth looking at.”
“Our peers, our competitors, advanced economy democracies, have a more built up function for child care, and they wind up having more substantially higher labor force participation for women,” in answer to a question from a House member, further noting that the US led once in “female labor participation, a quarter century ago, and we no longer do.”
Racial inequality also shows its hand in the numbers: “The jobless rate among Black workers climbed to 9.9 percent last month from 9.2 percent in January. In contrast, joblessness for white workers ticked down to 5.6 percent from 5.7 percent in January, and rates for workers who identify as Hispanic or Asian also fell,” reported the Times.
“We’re still in a pandemic economy,” said Julia Coronado, founder of MacroPolicy Perspectives and a former Fed economist. “Millions of people are looking for work and willing to work, but they are constrained from working,” she told the Times.
The need for skilled labor is stronger than ever, and in some fields are harder than ever, but some say the opposite, and the Times cited “Avant, an online lender that has its headquarters in Chicago and a call center in Oak Ridge, Tenn., is planning to step up hiring at both locations. The corporate staff, which numbers 257, is expected to grow about 30 percent over the next year, said Margaret Hermes, head of talent . . .”
The outlook for the return of a full economic and jobs recovery remains uncertain and long term unemployment remains as are those that are stuck in part time jobs when they want full time has stubbornly held at 4.1 million.
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