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Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase

cnbc.com

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Re: Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase

#181

Post by SlightlyLeftPad »

psunavy03 wrote: post #6

We really need better ways of measuring economic health. I could lose my six-figure job, turn around, and get hired on as a server at Applebee's for minimum wage, and the "unemployment" rate would stay the same. Not to mention that it doesn't include those not actively looking for work. Either way, "full employment" doesn't mean much unless you take into account whether people are actually able to live a stable lifes…

I may be one of those statistics soon. My company refuses to lay people off but they are sending people out via wildly unrealistic expectations (move the goal post). The job market for six figure salaries is weak and I imagine many companies are doing this very same thing.

Re: Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase

#182

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

ajmurmann wrote: post #166
shafyy wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even better one: real wages, and income and wealth inequality.

Why does wealth inequality matter? If my real wealth doubles and Elon's real wealth doubles, inequality went up, yet everyone is tremendously better off. I think we are using inequality as a very bad proxy for poverty but we have much better metrics for that. I suspect people just dislike it for emotional reasons. I want to point out that Sweden has more billionaires per capita than the US. Yet everyone is fine with…

> Why does wealth inequality matter? If my real wealth doubles and Elon's real wealth doubles, inequality went up,

Not in terms of the ratio between you, which is the way we normally talk about wealth inequality : "he has X times more wealth than I do", or "she makes X times more than I do".

Anyway, this is not how wealth inequality has grown at all. It has happened by most people's real income barely rising at all over 40-50 years, while the rich have seen theirs rise by huge factors (hundreds to many thousands in some cases).

Re: Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase

#183

Post by pedroma »

hello_moto wrote: post #178
pedroma wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Nobody is incentivized to share bad news about the economy. Isn't the media incentivized to keep you watching or reading? The common criticism of media is they like to exaggerate a minor issue to get you to click on a headline.

except when it affects the economy thus their investment (be it 401k or something else)

They might be short sellers, or they might be foreign and view the US as an economic rival. There may be more incentives than just more clicks for the media.

Re: Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase

#184

Post by SR2Z »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #45
ajmurmann wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have good metrics. The problem is the media seems to only ever look at one of them at a time but we need to look at several at once to get a more complete picture. Your scenario would be called out by median household income, or better median disposable household income. Even the good old GDP per capita covers your case. Workforce participation also can be valuable instead of or in addition to unemployment numbers…

> Even the good old GDP per capita covers your case. Absolutely not. If corporate revenue increases, but wages stay the same, GDP per capita goes up, yet the workers aren't any better off. All that extra money is being absorbed by the ones at the top. Median disposable household income is probably the best measure.

If a software engineer starts working at Applebees, GDP will decrease. If lots of software engineers do it, GDP decreases more.

If corporate revenue increases and is spent (as most revenue is), then the workers will be better off in the most bland "raising all boats" sense of the word - there will be more competition for their labor and more opportunities for them to jump ship.

GDP gets a bad rap but if I had to pick a single metric, that's the one I'd choose.

Re: Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase

#186

Post by ed_elliott_asc »

psunavy03 wrote: post #6

We really need better ways of measuring economic health. I could lose my six-figure job, turn around, and get hired on as a server at Applebee's for minimum wage, and the "unemployment" rate would stay the same. Not to mention that it doesn't include those not actively looking for work. Either way, "full employment" doesn't mean much unless you take into account whether people are actually able to live a stable lifes…

Total wage $ would cover it.

Re: Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase

#187

Post by JumpCrisscross »

analyte123 wrote: post #52

The ADP payroll report is noise . It is based on the payroll data from ADP only . The assumption of this report is that companies that use ADP to process their payroll are completely representative of the entire economy and that there is no regional, sector, or company stage bias to their customers. A firm with ADP laying employees off and 3 new firms with the same number of employees being founded and using a differ…

> assumption of this report is that companies that use ADP to process their payroll are completely representative of the entire economy

No such assumption is made except by an errant reading of the report. The ADP report [1] can be used to predict BLS numbers, but it’s also independently useful. The reason the headline is 33,000 private-sector jobs were lost is because 33,000 private-sector jobs were lost, ADP can directly count that.

[1] https://adpemploymentreport.com/

Re: Private sector lost 33k jobs, badly missing expectations of 100k increase

#190

Post by krapp »

InkCanon wrote: post #158
jimbokun wrote: post #31

> But the contraction was capped by payroll expansions in goods-producing roles across industries such as manufacturing and mining. All together, goods-producing positions grew by 32,000 in the month, while payrolls for service roles overall fell by 66,000. Is this tariffs working as intended?

As a way to shift labour into less productive, lower paying industries? Yes.

Americans yearn for the mines.
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