Employers Added Just 98,000 Jobs in March Below Expectations of 180,000 (usatoday.com) 108
Employers slowed their pace of hiring while the unemployment rate fell to the lowest level in almost a decade in March, highlighting steady but sometimes mixed progress across the labor market. From a report on USA Today: Payroll growth weakened significantly last month amid harsher winter weather as employers added 98.000 jobs in a sharper pullback than anticipated. The unemployment rate, which is calculated from a different survey, fell to 4.5% from 4.7%, the Labor Department said Friday. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg projected 180,000 employment gains, based on their median estimate. Analysts expected some payback in March after unseasonably mild temperatures pulled forward hiring to early in the year, especially in sectors such as construction, resulting in 200,000-plus job gains in January and February. And a snowstorm that slammed into the Midwest and East Coast in mid-March likely further curtailed job growth, says economist Jim O'Sullivan of High Frequency Economics. [...] But some economists also have said the outsize job gains early this year defied a low unemployment rate that's supplying businesses a shrinking pool of available workers. Many analysts expect that trend ultimately to result in average monthly job gains of about 170,000 this year, down from 187,000 last year and 226,000 in 2015.
We need more H1B's* to fill the gaps (Score:5, Insightful)
We need more H1B's* to fill the gaps
or someone willing to work 60-80 hours a week in the bay area for 60K
ADP Begs to differ (Score:2)
Private payrolls grew 263K in March vs. 185K est.: ADP [cnbc.com]
Can the labor dept and ADP possibly be talking about the same thing?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
January and February of 2017 were also down from the 2016 and 2015 numbers. Sean Spicer was talking about how great Trump's numbers were, until it was pointed out that Obama did better.
Of course it's all probably just fake news or alt-facts or aliens or something.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"I'd be more worried about the fake war he is starting with Russia."
Or China. The Chinese president closed tens of thousands of golf clubs/courses and forbade 46000 high Party members to play that 'game for millionaires'.
And nothing offends them more than losing face.
And orange Hitler invites him to a golf club.
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
"The jobs are going away, folks. The jobs are going away. *waves pinched fingers* *shakes titties*" -- Donald J. Trump
I still want to transition to 32-hour work weeks, or maybe as low as 28. That's one of the side goals of my Universal Social Security plan: the efficiency improvements would normally lead to sharp population expansion, but I'd rather stall wealth growth in favor of shorter working hours. At a point, being wealthier doesn't really help you, because you buy all these toys but you work
Re:We need more H1B's* to fill the gaps (Score:5, Insightful)
At a point, being wealthier doesn't really help you, because you buy all these toys but you work all the time and don't have any leisure hours to play with them.
You don't buy all those toys to play with them. You buy all those toys because someone else at the country club bought them, and because Bob down the street doesn't own them and you want him to be jealous. Or did you think they actually used those extra 2 kitchens and 4 bedrooms, or the Olympic sized swimming pool with waterfall and and built-in grill that would give Bobby Flay wet dreams? That's why they have to lease the newest Range Rover, Porsche, or BMW every 2 years. Once you reach a certain threshold, toys aren't meant to be used, they're meant to be seen.
Re: (Score:3)
Rich people take vacations and private jet flights. Middle-classers just up-size their house from 982sqft (1950 average new single-family home size) to 2,300sqft (2000 size) and try to figure on when they can play all their XBox games.
Generally, we've gotten bigger houses and apartments to store our computers, tablets, kitchen appliances, washing machines, 6 TVs (one in every room), guitars, bicycles, fancy lamps, and so forth. We've also started to eat at McDonalds a lot, because who has time to cook?
Re: (Score:2)
Generally, we've gotten...6 TVs (one in every room)....We've also started to eat at McDonalds a lot, because who has time to cook? If we cooked, we couldn't watch all that anime on Netflix.
I solved that problem by putting a TV in the kitchen ;)
Re: (Score:1)
It's odd tho.. it takes me less time to cook and clean up from a meal that costs less than mcdonalds at home and would cost me $40 if I ate out.
Wild caught salmon...
Put over a low heat in some olive oil or butter with a bit of seasoning of the day on top and perhaps a line of mayo. Place in veggies around the edge of the skilliet. Set timer for 8 minutes. Turn salmon at 8 minutes. Set timer for 4 minutes. Test that it's 'flaky' at 12 minutes and that the veggies are tender. Transfer to plate. Put 1/8
Re: (Score:2)
That works after you've put in the time to learn to cook, which involves some planning. Most people aren't thinking that far ahead.
Re: (Score:1)
It's a fair point about the ingredients but my time at mcdonalds is often over 8 minutes-- I was being generous for symmetry. If there is just one person ahead of me they can easily take a few minutes to order.
However, shopping takes me about 30 minutes a week tho. That's a fair point. So add that to the time. Fair enough. 21 meals / 30 minutes-- say 90 seconds per meal (rounding up to 45 minutes for shopping?).
The meal from mcdonalds/wendys/taco bell is still tasty, unhealthy, and expensive compared t
Re: (Score:2)
What if you're watching an anime cooking show while you're cooking? I don't think there are any on Netflix, though.
Re: (Score:2)
I probably have 8 TVs in my house. Every LCD and Laptop is a TV. Some of my "TVs" have RF tuners, others are WiFi, but I can watch programs on any of them.
Re: (Score:2)
Wealth isn't freedom. You become a slave of your wealth if you allow yourself to be one. Because you become paranoid, others could want to steal your wealth, you start to worry, you start to protect it, and most of all you start to fear that it may be gone. What you are looking for is security. Security that you have food and shelter tomorrow, even if you for some reason cannot work anymore. That can be accomplished far easier than by accumulating tons of money. I (and everyone in my country) has that secur
Re: (Score:1)
And how might we, as you put it, more easily accomplish this ? I'm afraid I missed that part.
Re: (Score:2)
By spreading the risk. I don't need to accumulate wealth myself if I can rely on society's ability to catch me if I fall.
In the end it's way more sensible because not everyone will suddenly lose a limb and be unable to work anymore, so in total we need to accumulate way less wealth just to take care of "just in case" cases.
Re:We need more H1B's* to fill the gaps (Score:5, Insightful)
efficiency improvements would normally lead to sharp population expansion
Huh? Humans are not rabbits. All evidence shows that the wealthier we get, the fewer children we have.
Re: (Score:2)
No, all evidence shows that when an individual human unit gets wealthier, it slows its rapid breeding. Humans don't need to produce more children when fewer die out, either, as a society.
As a population, a human society includes a gradient of wealth. The expansion of that society causes scarcity pressures, which eventually limit that expansion. Those limits are felt at different levels in different ways.
Think about food. If you have fertile land in good climate to produce food for 10,000,000 people,
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So global statistics show population growth is slowing even though we're still growing population faster than ever because population won't really stop growing until it stops growing?
History has shown, and continues to show, that advances in technology reduce scarcity, and that reduction in scarcity directly causes a population boom. Reduction in scarcity is wealth. It's the capacity to feed 7 billion people on a planet that can sustain 0.63 billion humans. It's the capacity to have cars, roads, and r
Re: (Score:2)
So global statistics show population growth is slowing even though we're still growing population faster than ever because population won't really stop growing until it stops growing?
No. Global statistics show that the annual total number of births has been steadily declining since the late 80s. Population is growing only because the global population skews young, and we're in the process of filling out the age groups. Hans Rosling explained it very well in this TED talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:2)
BTW, if you don't want to watch the whole video (though I highly recommend it; Rosling does a great job of making dry statistics interesting), you can start at 10:15 for the most relevant part.
Re: (Score:2)
All evidence shows that the wealthier we get, the fewer children we have.
Only some evidence shows that.
Until about 50 years ago, wealth meant more children.
So what changed?
1. Contraceptives
2. Rapidly falling infant and childhood mortality
3. Increasing urbanization
Re: (Score:2)
All evidence shows that the wealthier we get, the fewer children we have.
Only some evidence shows that. Until about 50 years ago, wealth meant more children. So what changed? 1. Contraceptives 2. Rapidly falling infant and childhood mortality 3. Increasing urbanization
And female education. That seems also to play a very significant role.
Re: (Score:2)
It wounds better to say we created X number of jobs than to say we downsized X human beings and replaced them with foreign made robots that don't get sick, strike, complain, want raises and benefits, or make crazy demands for humane working conditions and safety.
Replacing people with robots is like printing money! Or burning fossil fuels. It can be done forever without any consequences! It's great!
Re: We need more H1B's* to fill the gaps (Score:2)
Climate change (Score:1)
So, do to climate change, already seasonally adjusted stats now have to be seasonally adjusted??!
Meanwhile (Score:2, Troll)
Re: (Score:3)
Binary guy is correct for once.
Both factually (Google it - "In what appeared to be a terrorist attack, a truck plowed into a crowd on a street and crashed into a department store in central Stockholm on Friday.") and rhetorically (this Anti-Trump spin job of a headline attached to a fairly neutral summary is far less significant than another terrorist attack in fragile Europe).
Re: (Score:2)
Binary guy is pretty incorrect, on both dimensions.
Sure there was a terrorist attack in Sweden, but the problem is with the term "another". Yes, there have been past terrorist attacks, but the implication was clearly referencing to the non-existant terrorist attacks Trump spoke of earlier this year as what is "another" to.
And what anti-Trump spin? The numbers were half the prediction. That's pretty dramatic. And the name "Trump" and title "President" appear nowhere.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
We went through 8 years of Obama where anything bad was blamed on Bush and his policies, yet anything good was credited to Obama, often in advance and for no actual reason (e.g., the Nobel Peace Prize).
Yet even before Trump took office, he was taking blame for shit Obama did or put into motion. Many of the things he was blamed for were simply made up. And when he does something good, no one gives him credit.
The media dug their own graves during the 2-year long campaign cycle (thanks to, Hillary campaignin
Re: (Score:2)
Yet even before Trump took office, he was ... shit .... And when he does something good, no one gives him credit
He hasn't done anything well. You're just delusional.
Re: (Score:3)
That number came from Trump's labor department.
Re: (Score:3)
Well clearly the influence of the DEEP STATE is at work here, to report such un-American job numbers!
I wonder if Trump will request a secret investigation into how many deep state henchmen are in the labor department XD
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
My roads are paved. I don't have to bribe policemen. It's shocking that there's a city with lead in the water. I can drive from one end of this massive country to the other on awesome highways and be free of highwaymen. I'm sending this message to you on a government invention.
Trust is not binary. Corporations are not perfect entities. Learn you some nuance, please.
This is Obama's fault. (Score:1)
Shag the Dog (Score:2)
They also revised that "magnificent" February jobs number...downward.
There must be some middle-eastern country we can bomb.
Thanks Obama (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
This actually makes sense. So many jobs have been saved that not as many people need to find new ones.
Umm, you could have lots of people looking for a job, with no new jobs being added. One of the factors as to why the expectations are what they were, is due to unemployed people entering the job market. So now those people have entered the job market, only to find that less jobs were created.
Re: (Score:2)
That was wrong too. Two wrongs don't make a right.
We're gonna create so many jobs (Score:1)
we're gonna be sick of jobs. We're going to win so hard it's going to hurt, believe me.
fake news (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
The good news is that in any given month, it allows yutzes on slashdot to choose the one they like better and shout that the other one is clearly propaganda.
That's so weird... (Score:2, Informative)
The DNC, an hour before the March job numbers were out put out this press release:
Source: CNS [cnsnews.com]
From the same article:
This Thread, Pre-Russian Troll (Score:3, Interesting)
US Private Sector Job Growth Far Exceeds Estimates (Score:2, Interesting)
Guess it depends on who you read:
> 4/5/2017 9:03 AM ET
> US Private Sector Job Growth Far Exceeds Estimates In March
> Employment in the U.S. private sector increased by much more than anticipated in the month of March, according to a report released by payroll processor ADP on Wednesday.
> ADP said private sector employment soared by 263,000 jobs in March compared to economist estimates for an increase of about 187,000 jobs.
http://www.rttnews.com/2760791/u-s-private-sector-job-growth-far-exceeds-e
Some data to understand that number (Score:4, Interesting)
About 8 or 10 years ago, and this was the *only* time I heard it, not since, the US economy needs to add about 128k jobs per month, for the number of people entering the workforce over those leaving it.
Re: (Score:2)
128k
Newer estimates are higher: [businessinsider.com]
So when you read "added 98,000" you have to understand "lost 108,000" relative to steady state.
And when the loyal press diligently repeats "and the unemployment rate fell" you can fall back on your fourth-grade mathematics to know that they're lying with statistics (like removing people who cannot find work).
Why this is important
Restaurant bubble (Score:3)
This might be partially related to the restaurant bubble ending.
Re: (Score:2)
I love this for a number of reasons, but mostly because it will piss off a huge number of useful idiots. Right up there with People Eating Tasty Animals will forever haunt animal rights activists.
Re: (Score:2)
Shortly followed by a spike in jobs at undertakers I presume
Re: (Score:3)
Why is this modded troll?
The headline is "Employers Added Just 98,000 Jobs in March Below Expectations of 180,000".
The summary starts with "Employers slowed their pace of hiring while the unemployment rate fell to the lowest level in almost a decade in March".
The rest of the summary also explains that March's growth numbers were likely impacted by January and February having had larger-than-expected numbers, the big storms in the midwest, etc.
The headline is very negative while the summary is fairly neutral