Unemployment Rate Fell To 8.4 Percent In August

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This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1330469
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Rate of job growth slowed from the prior month. More permanent layoffs. More white collar layoffs. Market really hasn’t factored in unemployment but ironically I think it might in Sept/Oct. as they see it as more economic related than pandemic related. They’re laying off folks who can work and be as productive remotely vs the office. That’s reflective of a lack of demand.

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Maybe.

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There were larger RIFs announced mid-August that are probably not counted in these numbers (Accenture, American and United Airlines among them). Those number might not hit before October’s report.

And then there are people like me who are out of their day job and taking a part-time, lower paying job and won’t file at all.

My contract end came explicitly because the client could not sustain international implementations/ roll-outs of their software when international and even domestic travel was strained. My client’s good fortune (home improvement materials) during this pandemic is what’s keeping their holding company afloat, so there was no additional money, even though the need was there.

Watch the October numbers (and even the November numbers). This isn’t over by a long shot.

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We’re ostensibly adding a million-plus new jobs while at the same time new unemployment claims run at about a million a week. That’s a serious remodeling of the economy if accurate.

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One-quarter of the new hires were census temp jobs. So, this report is actually pretty weak.

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Greatest Economy EVER!

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Wow. So essentially not seasonally adjusted.

One of the things that worries me is that even the BLS seems to be becoming an organizaton that can’t be fully trusted. The republicans are pushing forward their post-truth society by removing unimpeachable sources of facts.

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So are these new jobs OR people returning to work?

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It actually is seasonally adjusted. However I don’t know if they remove the decennial cycle, or what their deseasonalization technique is generally.

What’s more concerning about the current population survey is the response rate during the pandemic has fallen to 50% from a more typical 90%. So they’re guessing more than normal.

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We can’t tell from the numbers just released. Which is another problem. These numbers, plus establishment survey numbers, plus number from the different income-support plans (regular unemployment vs the covid special adders) might be able to answer that at least partly. But no one at a high level in this administration appears competent to coordinate that kind of picture.

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churn verb

agitate or turn

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Lower unemployment rate is for the most part, good for American workers.

It is worthwhile to note that:

The Fed, however, noted that “some districts also reported slowing job growth and increased hiring volatility, particularly in service industries, with rising instances of furloughed workers being laid off permanently as demand remained soft.”

“…Ron Temple, head of U.S. Equity at Lazard Asset Management in New York. “The pandemic and the federal failure to sustain necessary assistance to households as well as state and local governments are weakening long-term economic growth and social stability.”

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-economy/u-s-weekly-jobless-claims-below-one-million-but-labor-market-recovery-ebbing-idUSKBN25U1WS?il=0

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How is the contraction of existing jobs reflected in the figures? How about people who were self-employed or never filed for unemployment because they never made enough from one job to qualify? The broad descriptions of jobs added and unemployment percentages don’t really do it for me without a lot more detail in how those numbers are taking into account a completely unprecedented employment market, in which large numbers of people are not traditionally employed in full-time adequate positions,
This may just be a lack of understanding in my part, so I’d welcome being educated.

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Are these NEW jobs they are counting or RETURNING employees?

Either way, this is nothing to brag about. We still have 30,000,000 Americans out of work and I’m pretty sure these are returning employees, not ‘new’ jobs.

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I agree, I also wonder just how the reformulation of the algorithm affected the overall number, my guess at least a point or so in Turnip’s favor. Then once the election is over we will have “magically” corrected numbers that show squat actually happened. I say magically because I truly believe all of a sudden DOL will come to the conclusion that the new algorithm was flawed.

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do you have a link for this? Its sounds pretty damned significant (especially given that the people who aren’t responding are probably those struggling to stay afloat…)

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Sincere question here -

For anyone who knows about this stuff …

So - how does unemployment go down, when we are averaging 1M new jobless claim a week?

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Meh, none of it matters re the election. How many voters are “deciding” at this point? A few who voted for Trump in 2016 and are looking for some reason to vote for him again? In poll after poll, independents are breaking for Biden.

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i don’t know if its the case here, but one way it can happen is when people run out of unemployment benefits. The “unemployment” numbers are from the states, and are not the number of people who are out of work, but the people collecting benefits – once you run out, you’re no longer counted.

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