Counting against the total job losses were 18,000 new government jobs.  This means the total number of private jobs lost in March is close to 100,000.  Some analysts and economists look at 100,000 lost jobs as a sure sign of a recession, so it is no surprise that the Department of Labor and Bureau of Economic Statistics would want to show a lower number.

Revisions:  Oh yeah, January and February were worse than first reported as well.  Last month I reported that 96,000 non-government jobs were lost, but the total number has been revised upward now to about 109,000.  But don't worry - for every three private jobs lost, the government is adding one.  Now, this isn't a horrible thing if next month or the month after shows any sort of slow down in job losses.  The unemployment rate is still at 5% (even if this 5% is manipulated by fast growth in government employment and a rise in the number of unemployed considered "outside the workforce.")

So who really knows what the real March unemployment number will be?  Well, no one really, but it seems likely that the number could be revised upward again as more employers are surveyed and more data comes in for the bureaucrats to study.

Myth:  A Weak Dollar is good for Manufacturing

Fact:  Manufacturing is among the hardest hit sectors, again.  This month, an easily identified reason is the effect of an automotive parts supplier strike, but it is symptomatic of the bigger picture in U.S. manufacturing decline.  Manufacturing is a low value-added proposition in the global economy of cheap labor.  Owners, engineers, and unions can try to increase productivity through better training or advanced worker discipline and work-ethic, but that energy would have been better spent in a more technical field. 

Manufacturing will continue to decline unless new jobs in higher value-added fields like marketing, media, and technology are not created and the entire average quality of life in America declines to the point where low manufacturing wages are attractive again.  New technological or input cost-saving technologies might save manufacturing, or at least slow the decline.  Unfortunately, these technologies would probably proliferate through the global economy and keep labor prices low.

These unemployed people don't count: 

The BLS says about 1.4 million people who were "marginally attached" to the labor force, yet not working, do not count as unemployed.  This includes some 400,000 people who have simply given up on finding a job, and about 1,000,000 people who haven't "actively" sought employment in the last four weeks.  If these "marginally attached" individuals were included, this would increase the unemployment rate by about 20-25% - into the 6-7% range.
 

Relative to the total labor force, the changes this month are significant, yet small.  The question left unanswers is about the bigger employment trend:  Is the trend gaining or losing its momentum?  I don't know if employment is a good indicator to judge this by, because it is too backwards-looking.   Today's report only tells us about what happened in March and February, and says nothing about what is happening today in April.

Oh yeah, in case you want read more, check out the source.

Bureau of Lies, Damn Lies, and Labor Statistics

http://www.bls.gov

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm 

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Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved.