Working Thoughts

• Analysts expected an overall gain of 190,000
• Private sector payrolls increased by 220,000

• Private service producing industries added 152,000
• Goods producing industries gained 70,000




• December was revised to a gain of 152,000 from a revision of 121,000 and an original reading of 103,000
• January was revised to a gain of 68,000 from a revision of 63,000 and an original reading of 36,000 gain
  
• Payroll processor ADP reported an employment gain of 217,000 jobs
  

• 46% of the 217,000 came from small business (firms with less than 50 employees)




• 6.0 million people have been jobless for more than 6 months (long term
  unemployed) – down from 6.2 million last month and 6.4 two months ago
  
  • 43.9% of the unemployed are long term unemployed – up from 43.8% last month (the overall population count has changed resulting in one number improving positively, but another appearing to be negative compared to last month)
    
• Employers
  announced plans to cut 50,702 jobs in February, a subdued number but a year over year increase (42,090 in Feb 2010)
  

Unemployment rate dropped to 8.9%

• Analysts predicted it would rise to 9.1%
• The unemployment rate dipped below 9.0% for the first time 21 months
• Last month there was an oddity of a low increase in jobs but a large drop in unemployment rate. After further inspection this is the result of an unusual squeeze of the components to this equation Number of people in the workforce (civilian labor force) – number of people with jobs (employed) = number of unemployed people.
  

• The civilian labor force shrunk a little more than a normal drop with people dropping out of the labor force and the number of people with jobs increased a touch resulting in a significant drop in the unemployment rate
• The “Not in Labor Force” number rose by 2.4 million people from February 2010 to February 2011

• The labor force
  participation rate is 64.2% (66.5% is average to good) – unchanged
  
• The employment to population ratio is 58.4% – unchanged
  
• The
  U-6
  report, which is a broader group to count (workers who are part
  time but want to be full time and discouraged worker), dropped to 15.9% from 16.1%.
  
• PMI,
  a measure of manufacturing pace, is 61.4% and the 21th consecutive
  month of readings over 50 percent. Anything above 50% means the
  machines are running
• Service
  sector activity rose to 59.7%, up from 59.4% last month. It was the
  15th straight month of growth
  

Specific Segment Job numbers:

• Manufacturing gained 33,000 jobs
  
• Construction gained 33,000 jobs (lost 32,000 so an even start to the year)
  
• Retailers lost 8,100 jobs
  
• Leisure and Hospitality Services gained 21,000 jobs
  
• Government sector lost 30,000, all state or local
  
• Education and Health Services grew by 40,000 jobs

• Health Care and Social Assistance grew by 36,200
  

• Professional and Business Services grew by 47,000

• 15,500 jobs gained in Temporary Help (lost jobs last month after several months of gains)
  

Wage (can be revised):

• The average weekly paycheck (seasonally adjusted) is $647.56 – an increase of $1.94 and a $3.35 positive change from December, 2010. $19.08 gain in the last year (there’s been low inflation so this is good)
  
• The average hourly earning (seasonally adjusted) is $19.33 – flat from last month
  
• Average
  weekly hours and overtime of production and nonsupervisory employees on
  private nonfarm payrolls by industry sector, seasonally adjusted is
  33.5 hours, up slightly from 33.4
  

Bureau of Labor Statistics