Friday, May 06, 2011

Private Sector Gains Jobs, Public Sector Loses


Some highlights from today's Employment Report:

1. Private payroll employment increased by 268,000 jobs in April, the largest monthly private-sector job gain in more than four years, since a 286,000 increase in February 2006.   The April increase in private payroll jobs was the 14th consecutive monthly gain, bringing the total number of private jobs added since March of last year to 2.09 million (see chart above).

2. In contrast to the ongoing improvements in private sector employment, total government employment fell for the sixth month in a row by 24,000 in April, and for the 10th out of the last 11 months. Local governments shed 14,000 jobs in April, state government jobs fell by 8,000 and the federal government employment fell by 2,000.  

Total government employment in April, at 22.16 million, was the lowest number of government jobs since July 2007, more than three and-a-half years ago.  Government employment at the local level in April was the lowest since August 2006, and for states the lowest since January 2007, as governments at those levels have been forced to shrink payrolls to address large budget deficits. 

Here are reports from the WSJ and Washington Post.

MP: Perhaps the contraction in the government employment by more than 500,000 jobs over the last two years is one of the under-appreciated and under-reported benefits of the Great Recession.  

11 Comments:

At 5/06/2011 9:23 AM, Blogger bix1951 said...

Yes it really is a mystery to me what those 22 million government employees are doing to earn their keep. My rule of thumb is that one private sector employee can do the work of five government employees.
Also, a lot of government work seems to be putting up obstacles for the rest of us.

 
At 5/06/2011 10:25 AM, Blogger morganovich said...

62k of those jobs were from mcdonalds.

it's a mccovery!

 
At 5/06/2011 10:59 AM, Blogger Junkyard_hawg1985 said...

I'm glad to see the number of government employees dropping. This is indeed a good step.

My concern from the unemployment report this month is the drop in the number of people working. The seasonally adjusted total employment based on the survey fell from 139.864 million in March to 139.674 million in April. This was after several good months of growth. I hope it is a one time abberation instead of a new trend.

 
At 5/06/2011 11:51 AM, Blogger Benjamin Cole said...

Taxpayers:

Here are people are getting wages and lifetime pensions and medical benefits at your expense, sometimes after just 20 years of service.

Department of Defense 3,000,000
Veterans Affairs 275,000
Homeland Security 250,000
Treasury 115,000
Justice 112,000
Energy 109,000
USDA 109,000
Interior 71,000

Labor 17,000
HUD 10,000
Education 4,487

 
At 5/06/2011 1:32 PM, Blogger juandos said...

"Private payroll employment increased by 268,000 jobs in April"...

Ahhh, not really factual unless you're a Joe Biden clone...

From Zer0Hedge: Participation Rate Unchanged At 25 Year Low 64.2% For Third Straight Month

One of the key metrics in today's report: April civilian non-institutional population at 239,146, a meager rise of 146k from March, and the Civilian Labor Force also barely growing from 153,406 to 153,421 means that for the 3rd straight month the Labor Force Participation Rate remained at a 25 year low of 64.2%....

Again from Ze0Hedge: Today's BLS of 244K is great... until you exclude the 62K from McDonalds hirings, and 175K from the Birth Death Adjustment, and end up with.... +7K jobs

 
At 5/06/2011 4:19 PM, Blogger VangelV said...

Some perspective seems needed. Today, the Labor Department reported that nonfarm payrolls (jobs) increased in April for an eighth consecutive monthly gain. Today’s chart provides some perspective on the US job market. Note how the number of jobs steadily increased from 1961 to 2001 (top chart). During the last economic recovery (i.e. the end of 2001 to the end of 2007), job growth was unable to get back up to its long-term trend (first time since 1961). More recently, nonfarm payrolls have pulled away from its 40-year trend (1961-2001) by a record percentage (bottom chart). In fact, the current number of US jobs was first reached in early 2000.

And the government keeps getting in the way.

 
At 5/06/2011 4:38 PM, Blogger morganovich said...

juandos-

exactly. people actually working only went up by 15k.

that's pretty poor performance.

 
At 5/06/2011 9:29 PM, Blogger juandos said...

Consider the following again from ZeroHedge: Had enough of neverending BLS inflation data manipulation? You may be in luck. Hot on the heels of the MIT Billion Prices Project (which we were delighted to see recently came back on line), there now is... PriceStats, potentially the most revolutionary concept to come to the fielf of econometrics, and thus fiscal and monetary policy in ages...

PriceStat

 
At 5/07/2011 5:42 PM, Blogger Daves Markets said...

I am somewhat skeptical regarding the 268,000 jobs created. Considering that this number is derived from some weird calculation that could be skewed by whatever percentage that seems appropriate, I am appalled that people rely on it.

Is there no accurate method of counting the new jobs...?

Thanks for this blog, it is a gold mine of information

 
At 5/08/2011 8:02 AM, Blogger juandos said...

Hey vangeIV I see you too find the Pragmatic Capitalism in your list of favorites...

Good choice sir!

BTW thanks for the link to that video clip...

Sad isn't it?

 
At 5/08/2011 8:31 AM, Blogger VangelV said...

Hey vangeIV I see you too find the Pragmatic Capitalism in your list of favorites...

I subscribe to the comments in Google Reader. It is a very useful site even if I have trouble with the occasional posting here and there.

BTW thanks for the link to that video clip...

Sad isn't it?


It is sad. If I were on the committee of idiots in the Republican Party I would use the clip as an ad in the election.

 

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