For all of those who are still scratching their heads over last Friday’s Jobs Report, from the Labor Dept. the news of only 210,000 jobs, when 500,000 were expected, might see a revision next month to temper their spirits.
It’s still a market for job seekers as they continue to reevaluate their future roles, and especially for low income workers who have spent countless hours on their feet for low wages, which is probably why retail jobs sunk to 28,000, and in an especially dangerous era for Covid concerns, working with the uncertainty of vaccine status among coworkers and customers makes for a worrisome time.
Add the danger of being shot, or conked over the head, by marauding gangs stealing luxury goods to be sold on the internet’s black market, and the die is cast.
The good news is that the labor force participation has risen to 61.8 percent, a reflection perhaps of those who have managed to gain, thanks in part to the extended unemployment benefits to find better jobs at better job conditions, and at a better rate that helped to push up hourly wages by 0.3 percent; seen especially for lower income workers.
“To me, the most important question in the economy going forward is: Will companies improve jobs enough to entice people back into employment, and to face those higher risks?” said Aaron Sojourner, a professor at the University of Minnesota and a former economist at the Council of Economic Advisers for the previous two administrations, reported The New York Times.
While no one wanted to dance in the streets at the dismal report, President Biden tried to put a better spin on it and attributing the higher wage participation and wage increase to his Build Back Better plan, and at the White House he said, “he hailed the drop in the unemployment rate as a vindication of his administration’s policies — while acknowledging the mixed signals in the jobs report, according to the TImes, but added “Our economy is markedly stronger,” . . . and went on to say: “It’s not enough to know that we’re making progress. You need to see it and feel it in your own lives — around the kitchen table, in your checkbooks.”
“This is a miserable jobs report, there’s no spinning it any other way,” said Rep. Kevin Brady to The Hill.
Some saw light at the end of the tunnel:a slight uptick in women’s employment, overall, and that of Hispanics, have given some rise to optimism, but it’s still too early to see this as a true indicator of note.
Fears of the new variant Omicron are also not present in the report taken ahead of the detection by South African virologists, so the December report will be able to add to concerns.
Meanwhile pressure is up on Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to intervene on inflation, but he, along with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, feel that these figures will eventually dissipate; but others disagree, but as we’ve noted there is little that the federal government can do, except wait and see, say most economists.
The Times noted the discrepancy between the two reporting methods and that the household with its smaller sample might be the culprit: Part of the puzzle in the data released on Friday arose because the Labor Department report is based on two surveys, one polling households and the other recording hiring among employers.
“For about the past half-year, the survey of households had been showing significantly weaker job growth than its sister survey — until last month, when it was much stronger. It showed overall employment, for example, growing by 1.1 million, seasonally adjusted.”
They added, “Economists generally put more trust in the employer survey, which has a much larger sample size. So the recent pattern suggests that the household survey had been undercounting employment and, in effect, caught up in November.”
This is not always the case, and some economists feel that the household survey is more accurate, despite its size because of the direct nature of the methodology, but then failure is an orphan, while success has many fathers.
“Average hourly earnings for nonsupervisory workers were up 8 cents in November, to $31.03, and are 4.8 percent higher than a year ago, according to the report on Friday.”
Wages, while up, are only part of the challenge in hiring, say many employers and it seems to be a steady progress to other areas: increasing paid time off (PTO), increasing employer contribution to health care, among others.
Wage growth, however, has not kept up with high cost of living, especially in urban areas, such as Chicago, Los Angeles and New York where housing costs are high, and going higher, and some sources have reported that even cities outside of those areas are seeing a struggle to stay afloat, especially for families; middle class as well as working class.
In consideration, the Times acknowledged that, “The latest University of Michigan survey of consumer sentiment pointed to “the growing belief among consumers that no effective policies have yet been developed to reduce the damage from surging inflation.”
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