The equity markets are off sharply today and you can see why.
No, it’s not that the BLS headliine employment number from the Establishment Survey is off 49,000, as published in the Employment Situation Summary.
As usual, the real story is in the Household Survey. And there you can see real turmoil in the US labor market. Let’s do the numbers.
- Civilian labor force: up 577,000
- Employment: down 285,000
- Unemployment: up 861,000
- Not in labor force: down 369,000
The net effect is that unemployment is up from 5.0 percent to 5.5 percent.
You can see what is happening. People are coming into the labor force looking for jobs, probably to increase income and avoid foreclosure on their homes, but businesses are shedding workers.
That’s what you call turmoil. Let’s hope that things turn around soon and that the Great American Job Machine gets back in gear.
What should the government do? How about stopping one wasteful and unjust program. Just one. My choice would be the ethanol subsidy. What’s yours?
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