Part 1 - The real unemployment rate for February 5th
Bottom Line: After a lot of disparity between the ADP private sector jobs report (which produced a blowout number of 242,000 jobs being added in December compared to 148,000 in the government report) we saw a solid 200,000 jobs being added in January, 20,000 more than estimates, and massive upward revisions to 2017's jobs growth (with more likely on the way). Let's hit the highlights:
Headline unemployment rate 4.1% (flat for four consecutive months maintaining the lowest unemployment rate in 17 years and two months)
Massive upward revisions to 2017's numbers - 118,000 total additional jobs were found to have been created adding a total of 2,173,000 jobs in 2017
After hitting the lowest unemployment rate for African Americans on record in December - unemployment slightly increased for black adults in January
Top industries for hiring:
#1 Construction (added 36,000 jobs)
#2 Food-service (added 31,000 jobs)
#3 Healthcare (added 21,000 jobs)
#4 Manufacturing (added 18,000)
The breadth of the job growth continues to paint a broad based successful story of our economy and the incredible manufacturing resurgence story continues to play out. Over the past year we've added 186,000 manufacturing jobs in the US. We're now back to the highest level of manufacturing employment that we've had in the United States since January of 2009.
Now for the real unemployment rate once underemployed and long-term unemployed people are accounted for.
Actual: 8.2% down from 10.1% (year over year improvement of 19%)
So here are three relevant points:
1. When the long-term unemployed & marginally employed are factored in - the real unemployment is double the base reported rate
2. 1.4 million are long-term unemployed, 5 million are underemployed (part-time seeking full-time work) & 1.7 million are marginally attached to the workforce
3. The labor participation rate remained at 62.7% for the fourth consecutive month
In part two we'll take a look at the demographics of the unemployed...