Almost in every category, the government’s monthly job report for February was strong. The Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday that the economy created a net gain of 313,000 new jobs last month, seasonally adjusted. That was 100,000 more jobs than a consensus of economists surveyed by Bloomberg ahead of the report’s release had expected.
The private sector accounted for 287,000 of those jobs. The “headline” rate of unemployment remained unchanged at 4.1 percent for the fifth consecutive month. A secondary measure that many economists believe provides a better take on the overall health of the job market—because it covers unemployment, underemployment and some discouraged workers—remained at 8.2 percent.
In each month’s report, the BLS revises job estimates for the previous two months to include data available that were not available when those reports were originally released. The bureau revised January’s numbers from 200,000 to 239,000, and December’s numbers from 160,000 to 175,000.
Average wages for all workers rose by 4 cents an hour. In the past 12 months, wages have risen 68 cents an hour, 2.6 percent against an inflation rate of 2.1 percent. Elise Gould at the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute wrote Thursday:
Depending on the data set and specific statistic, wage growth between 2016 and 2017 ranged between 2.3 percent and 2.6 percent. Strong wage growth should be above 3.5 percent to reflect the Fed’s target inflation rate of 2.0 percent plus potential productivity growth (around 1.5 percent). By any measure, nominal wage growth continues to fall short. It seems clear that employers and workers alike know that there are still workers waiting in the wings—every month about 2/3 of the newly employed go straight from out of the labor force into a job so it’s no surprise that the unemployment rate might be overstating the strength of the economy—and because of that labor market slack, workers do not have the leverage to bid up their wages.
The survey period for each BLS jobs report finishes around the 12th of each month, so the February report covers the first half of February and last half of January, not February alone. Full-time and part-time positions are included in the bureau’s count. A person who has worked a single hour a week during the survey period is counted as employed.
Unemployment rates differ by race and sex. [Percentages in brackets are for January]. For U3: Adult men: 3.7 percent [3.9]; Adult women: 3.8 percent [3.6]; Whites: 3.7 percent [3.5] ; Blacks: 6.9 percent [7.7]; Asians: 2.9 percent [3.0]; Hispanics: 4.9 percent [5.0]; American Indians: (not counted monthly).
The BLS estimates each month’s jobs gains or losses by analyzing the Current Employment Survey of 147,000 business establishments. The unemployment rate is calculated from the Current Population Survey of 60,000 households.
U3 is the BLS label for its headline rate of unemployment. It’s at 4.1 percent, its lowest level in 17 years. One reason it hasn’t fallen in the past few months is the fact that so many people have joined or returned to the workforce.
In addition, the bureau calculates unemployment for groups other than those simply looking for a job. U6 is an inclusive measure of “labor underutilitization” and covers both unemployment and underemployment. In February, U6 remained at 8.2 percent. Its low right before the Great Recession was 8 percent in March 2007. However, in mid-2001, it reached 6.9 percent. The U6 count covers a number of categories, one of those being part-time workers who want full-time positions but cannot get them.
The civilian workforce rose by 806,000 after rising 518,000 in January. The labor force participation rate rose 0.3 to 63 percent, and the employment-population ratio also rose 0.3 to 60.4 percent.
Additional details from the report:
• Average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees rose 6 cents an hour to $22.40 in February, after rising 3 cents an hour in January.
• Average work week for all employees on non-farm payroll rose 0.1 to 34.5 hours after falling in January by 0.1.
• Average hourly earnings for all employees on private non-farm payrolls rose in February 4 cents an hour to $26.75 after rising 7 cents an hour in January.
• The manufacturing work week in February rose by 0.2 to 41 hours.
November Job Gains and Losses for selected categories:
- Professional services: 50,000
- Temporary help services: 26,500
- Transportation & warehousing: 15,400
- Financial activities: 28,000
- Leisure & hospitality: 16,000
- Information: -12,000
- Education and health services: 23,000
- Health care & social assistance: 29,100
- Retail trade: 50,300
- Construction: 61,000
- Manufacturing: 31,000
- Mining and Logging: 8,000
Here's what the seasonally adjusted job growth numbers have looked like in the previous decade compared with this February’s gain of 313,000 jobs.
February 2008: -81,000
February 2009:-704,000
February 2010: -73,000
February 2011: 182,000
February 2012: 233,000
February 2013: 265,000
February 2014: 182,000
February 2015: 267,000
February 2016: 257,000
February 2017: 200,000