Here's the report from MSNBC.com on today's January employment report:
America’s employers added 146,000 jobs in January — a pickup from the previous month, but still a somewhat lackluster pace that underscores the slow recovery as the nation’s labor market tries to get back to full throttle...
The 146,000 gain in payrolls in January — while the most since October — still fell short of economists’ forecasts for a more robust gain of around 200,000 for the month. Jobs gains for December came in at 133,000, down from an initial estimate of 157,000 just a month ago.
According the BLS report, most sectors enjoyed at least some positive growth. The exception -- brace yourself -- was manufacturing.
In January, manufacturing employment declined by 25,000, with widespread, though mostly small, losses among its component industries.
If you are looking for good news, here you go (courtesy of Bloomberg):
The government officially revises the figures with its January report after reviewing more complete data not available earlier from state unemployment insurance programs. The economy added 203,000 more jobs than first estimated for the year ended March 2004.
But, then, there is this perspective:
With today's gain and the revision, the U.S. has now gained 119,000 jobs since Bush took office in January 2001 and is up 27,000 since employment peaked a month later.
The employment rebound of 47 months surpassed by more than a year the so-called "jobless'' recovery a decade earlier...
It took a decade to recover all the jobs lost during the Great Depression that started in 1929, when Hoover was president. Then, the government only kept yearly statistics.
Ouch, as the say. But you can't keep the optimists down. Continuing with the Bloomberg report:
Today's jobs report "is not a sign of weakness, the economy continues to create jobs,'' said Richard Yamarone, chief economist for Argus Research Corp. in New York, who predicted 130,000 jobs...
"The gains so far have been sufficient to take up slack in the labor market, though we've also had unusually slow growth in the labor force,'' said DeKaser, chief economist at National City Corp. in Cleveland, who forecast a payrolls gain of 167,000. "I don't expect growth in the labor force to be as muted as it's been, and I think we're going to need to see gains of at least 150,000 going forward.'
The economy needs about 150,000 jobs a month to consistently take slack out of the labor market, according to economists including Richard DeKaser.
The growth rate of the labor force comment comes in the context of this information:
The unemployment rate, which is determined by a separate survey of households, was expected to hold at 5.4 percent, based on the median forecast. The 0.2 percentage point decline from December was mainly attributable to a drop of 224,000 in the labor force, which is the number of people who were either employed or looking for work last month.
The decline brought the percentage of the working-age population in the labor force, also called the participation rate, to a 17-year low of 65.8 percent. The decline was driven mainly by a drop in the number of young men, ages 16 to 25, who considered themselves part of the labor force.
“There’s still a level of frustration. The economy is producing a moderate amount of job growth, but not a satisfying amount of job growth. That means there are a limited number of new opportunities for workers,” said economist Ken Mayland, president of ClearView Economics.
Kash at Angry Bear concurs.
UPDATE: The Economic Policy Institute concurs as well. (Hat tip: Michael at global trader's diary.)
UPDATE UPDATE: So does Barry Ritholz. And apparently he doesn't like my explanation.
Interpreting the participation rate statistic is tricky -- here's a nice discussion at Angry Bear if you are interested -- and I generally take no comfort, or discomfort, in modest swings in the unemployment rate. All things considered, I think this sentiment (from the aforementioned MSNBC.com article) is shared by many.