January 2010 Jobs Report and Wages
February 6, 2010 Leave a comment
Here are the job market and compensation numbers for January 2010 (based on the job report):
Net loss of 20,000 jobs in the month (revised in March 2010 to a gain of 14,000 jobs)
- Analysts expected a gain of 13,000
- A benchmark adjustment was made to the unemployment numbers for the last 18 months
- The job losses of 2009 were actually under reported by a sum of 617,000
- One year ago the US lost 779,000 jobs – still jaw dropping
- October was revised to a loss of 224,000 from an original reading of 190,000 and revised reading of 111,000
- November was revised to a gain of 64,000 jobs, up from an original gain of 4,000
- The first gain in 23 months
- December was revised to a loss of 150,000 from an original loss of 85,000
- 14.8 million of people are unemployed, it was 15.3 million in December 2009
- 9.3 million are unemployed due to job loss, down from 9.7 million last month
- 6.3 million people have been jobless for more than 6 months
- Temporary work, which usually precedes full time employment gains, added 52,000 jobs in January. This is after adding 46,500 jobs in December
- Major federal government hiring is underway for the census – 9,000 jobs were added (part of an overall increase of 33,000)
- Layoffs are flattening out, but hiring isn’t happening
Unemployment rate fell at 9.7%
- Analysts predicted it would stay at 10.0% or possibly go up
- The Unemployment rate hit 10.8 in 1982
- As employment picks up, the labor pool will grow again and the unemployment rate should go up
- The U-6 report, which is a broader group, dropped to 16.5%. It reached 17.3% last month
- GDP, which earned its status as an economic indicator for growth in the 1950s, showed an annualized gain of 5.7% in the 4th quarter of 2009
- PMI, a measure of manufacturing pace, showed a reading of 58.4%. Anything above 50% means the machines are running.
Specific Segment Job numbers:
- Manufacturing added 11,000 jobs
- Construction lost 75,000 jobs
- Retailers gained 42,100
- Leisure and Hospitality Services lost 14,000 jobs
- Government sector lost 8,000, Federal gains were 33,000
- Education and Health Services grew by 16,000 jobs
- Health Care and Social Assistance grew by 17,100
- Professional and Business Services grew by 44,000
- Temporary work added 52,000 jobs in December
Wage (can be revised):
- The average weekly paycheck (seasonally adjusted) is $629.04
- The average hourly earning (seasonally adjusted) is $18.89 – up 5 cents
- The average hourly work week rose to 33.3