Working Thoughts

• Analysts expected an overall gain of 185,000 (200,000 for private sector growth)
  
• Private sector payrolls increased by 268,000

• Private service producing industries added 224,000 (199,000 last month and 152,000 the month before)
  
• Goods producing industries gained 44,000 (31, 000 last month and 70,000 the month before)




• The US has added 800,000 private sector jobs this year and 2.1 million total over the past 14 months
• The last three months have averaged a job gain of 233,000- this is the fastest rate of growth since early 2006
  
• February was revised to a gain of 235,000 from a revised 194,000 and an original reading of 192,000
• March was revised to a gain of 221,000 from an original reading of a 216,000 gain
• Revisions added 46,000 jobs
• There are 6,955,000 fewer total nonfarm jobs since the recession started in December 2007. Although 244,000 jobs added is good, it will take 29 more months to dig out of the hole
  
• Payroll processor ADP reported an employment gain of 179,000 jobs
  

• 47% of the 179,000 ADP reported gain came from small business (firms with less than 50 employees). It was 49 last month and 46% the month before
  
• Large businesses (greater than 500 employees) hired 6.25% of the 179,000 gain
  




• McDonald’s hired 62,000 workers, but those hirings missed the survey window and will be more associated with the May Jobs Report
• About 13.7 million people were out of work in April – however, in a positive move many newly unemployed people are not getting fired.
  Instead they are leaving voluntarily, presumably because they think they
  can do better.
  The number of people unemployed because they lost jobs fell to 8,144,000 in April, the lowest figure in two years
• 5.8 million had have been jobless for six months or longer (a drop of 283,000 from last month, which is good) down from 6.5 million in March 2010
  
  • 43.4% of the unemployed are long term unemployed. Down from 45.5% last month
    
• Employers
  announced plans to cut 36,490 jobs in April, down 4.8% from April 2010 when the economy stalled
  

Unemployment rate rose to 9.0%

• Analysts predicted it would remain at 8.8%
• The labor force
  participation rate is 64.2% (66.5% is average to good) – unchanged for the fourth straight month

• Lowest since 1984
• The participation rate was dropping before the recession began due to changing demographics of the US population
• Every day, for the next 19 years, 10,000 boomers will turn 65. By 2030, 18% of the U.S. population will be over 65, compared with today’s 13%
• Job expansion to account for population growth (keeping the unemployment rate steady) is estimated to be 150,000 and 200,000, but the partially delayed retirement of the baby boomers is moving these numbers to 75,000 to 100,000

• The employment to population ratio is 58.4% – No change
• Normally the unemployment rate moves in lock step with changes to the participation rate and the employment ratio but the diverge this month because the household survey is finding a reduction of employed people by 190,000 people. With surveys there tends to be noise and the drop from 10% to 8.8% was probably too quick so a little rise is natural to sort things out
  
• 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), rose to 15.9% from 15.7% last month
  
• PMI,
  a measure of manufacturing pace, is 60.4% and the 22nd consecutive
  month of readings over 50 percent. Anything above 50% means the
  machines are running
• Service
  sector activity dropped to 52.8% from 57.3% last month and down from 59.7% in February. A dramatic drop when compared to other improvements (lowest level since August 2010). It was the
  16th straight month of growth
  
• GDP, the most widely used measurement of the the American economy grew at a lackluster 1.8 percent in the first quarter,
  according to the government’s estimate for the first quarter
• Nonfarm business sector labor productivity increased at a 1.6 percent annual rate during the first quarter of 2011
  

Specific Segment Job numbers:

• Manufacturing gained 29,000 jobs
  
• Construction gained 5,000 jobs
  
• Retailers gained 57,100 jobs
  
• Leisure and Hospitality Services gained 46,000 jobs
  
• Government sector lost 24,000, 22,000 was state and local government
  
• Education and Health Services grew by 49,000 jobs

• Health Care and Social Assistance grew by 41,800
  

• Professional and Business Services grew by 51,000

• 2,300 jobs lost in Temporary Help
  

Wage (can be revised):

• The
  average weekly paycheck (seasonally
  adjusted) is $650.83
  
• The average hourly earning (seasonally adjusted) is $19.37 – up a nickle from last month
• Corporations set a new record for profits: $1.68 trillion annual rate in the fourth quarter of 2010
  
• Average
  weekly hours and overtime of production and nonsupervisory employees on
  private nonfarm payrolls by industry sector, seasonally adjusted is
  33.6 hours, no change
  

Bureau of Labor Statistics