Rocky Mountain Perspective: Insight & not-so-PC News
  • Intro
  • November's NiLF & PT #s spike
  • October's #s belie recovery
  • Graphed & Charted DOL #s
  • July breadwinner jobs missing
  • O Channels Abrams on Jobs
  • Emperor's purge 130 mil'n
  • O's Shrinking Aug. Jobs #s
  • May grads flood job market
  • Spring 2014 ETA Job Numbers
  • March BLS Report Unmasked
  • Real Unemployment
  • Smoke & MIrrors on Labor Day
  • 98.5 Million Jobs Slashed
  • Obama's BLS Numbers
  • 90 Million Jobs Lost
  • Romney At Red Rocks
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Has workforce growth and the economy finally turned for Americans who’ve suffered job losses to the tune of 105 million under the Obama Administration? That’s what the merry-go-round group of apologists and spokespeople on behalf of the President want displaced workers to believe this Labor Day.

With Thomas Perez sworn in as Labor Secretary on July 23, 2013, some uncharacteristic figures appeared that seemed reminiscent of Hilda Solis’ brazen assignment of an extra half million jobs lost to Bush’s final months in Office three years after the survey-based BLS figures were first released. The dramatic change in numbers appeared promptly after BLS Commissioner John Hall’s departure in January 2012, when Labor Secretary Solis assumed leadership at the BLS in the absence of an appointed replacement for Hall.

The latest employment figures for the month of July were dismal, to say the least. Of course, only the final week of the month had anything to do with Perez’ newly appointed leadership role at the DOL.

For those who missed the last headline figure, the BLS Seasonally Adjusted estimate of who’s employed showed a disappointing 162,000 jobs added to the economy in July, while May and June had 26,000 jobs removed from earlier months’ estimates. The more precise Not Seasonally Adjusted count showed a loss of 1,113,000 employed Americans on Establishment Data Table B1 for Total Non-Farm Employment. Since the BLS July SA count comes up short of what’s
needed on a monthly basis for our young adults who’ve completed schooling or training programs, together with immigrants and migrant newcomers seeking
employment, the foremost question this Labor Day should be how, and whether, Obama’s heretofore moribund economy can reemploy significant numbers of the 105 million claimants for unemployment after job losses through Saturday, August 24th, 2013. 
 
Members of the national workforce have suffered vastly different results regarding separation from employment since 2009, according to Labor Department demographic data. Under Household Data, Table A-7, foreign born workers’ role in the U.S. economy shows they’re employed at the highest rate of any group in the workforce at 79.6%, and their unemployment rate at 5.7% dwarfs all groups aside from our best educated college graduates, advanced degreed and professional workers combined. Since July 2012, foreign born males increased by 214,000 in the workforce, while foreign born females gained 265,000 jobs. Of course, those
numbers don’t account in any way for millions of undocumented workers paid under the table and off the books. A single gender specific figure shows Hispanic
males topping workforce participation rates at 81.7% during July on Table A-3, which shows the nation’s largest bloc of newcomers employed at a rate 6.7% above
our best educated, homegrown scholars and professionals.
 
Our native born workers showed an increase of 666,000 jobs for American males over the past year, while native born females lost 157,000 jobs during the latest
twelve-month period. In direct comparison, foreign born workers gained 479,000 jobs against American born workers' overall gain of 509,000 jobs. Basic math
using civilian non-institutional population counts from the BLS shows foreign born workers taking jobs at six times the rate of our own increasingly college educated workforce. Table A-4 shows college graduates with bachelor’s, master’s, professional and doctoral degrees lagging behind the lofty foreign born workers’ participation rates by 4.6%. During July 2013 alone, workers with a bachelor’s degree and higher lost 255,000 jobs on SA estimates, while the NSA counts showed a painful 384,000 jobs lost for our best educated workers.
 
Household Data Table A-3 shows Hispanic or Latino workers gaining 124,000 jobs on NSA counts, while SA estimates claim a 74,000 increase. Since July 2012, the Hispanic employment growth shows a twelve-month increase of 725,000 jobs overall. Lastly, at 67.2%, the combined Hispanic/Latino workforce participation
rate, including both males and females, was almost 4% higher than the rest of the nation’s cumulative participation rate numbers. Because of the hidden and
intentionally secretive nature of their participation in the workforce, undocumented workers who dominate laboring jobs in sanctuary cities across the Southwest aren’t included in any comprehensive way in the counts.

While the loss of 1,113,000 jobs on NSA counts for July exceeds the worst individual month since the depths of the recession, the 162,000 SA claimed increase comes up tens of thousands short of employing our come-of-age native born workforce entrants along with immigrants legal and otherwise combined for a monthly requirement. The Department of Labor’s ETA counts post the only actual comprehensive nationwide counts of who’s filed claims after job losses, as well as real
employers’ payroll record counts on a quarterly basis. At 129,827,178 in July, the overall workforce under Obama remains 4,059,652 behind the 133,886,830
Americans gainfully employed in January 2009 when George Bush left Office.
  
I’ve sought to focus employment statistics on the verifiable cumulative ETA counts since last summer. Nearly two months ago, I had the opportunity to explain critical differences between BLS and ETA counts on a popular nationwide radio broadcast, and it appears the Obama Administration has taken note. At least that’s the impression given by the dramatic shift in weekly ETA job loss counts under new Labor Secretary Thomas Perez.
 
Among the ugliest figures identifying the state of the economy under Obama has been weekly job loss counts compiled by employment offices across the nation’s 50 states. During the four-and-a-half years Hilda Solis headed the Labor Department, job loss counts never once came in under 300,000 new claimants during a five-day week on ETA counts. In a four-day week last September, shortened by Labor Day a year ago, a total of 299,729 claims after job losses broke the 300,000 job loss barrier for the first time, which was repeated only once more under Solis during the week ended June 1, 2013, which included the four-day Memorial Day week. That count came in at 293,792.

In comparison to workforce numbers under George Bush, a stretch from the final week of March 2004 through October 2007 saw 95 of 183 weeks amass fewer than 300,000 job losses, according to ETA counts. Impressively, four of those counted in the 240’s. During that stretch enroute to growing the nation’s workforce by 7.1 million on ETA cumulative employers’ payroll counts, the Bush Administration economy bettered the 300,000 mark 52% of the time over three years, seven-and-a-half months.

While Hilda Solis served as Labor Secretary for the Obama Administration, not once in 234 weeks, or 1638 days for those interested in full disclosure of the duration, did the President’s job killing economy manage losses of fewer than 300,000 during a five-day week. And that was with a shrunken workforce that reached 8.3 million fewer workers than the 133,886,830 turned over by Bush through the first quarter of 2011 to the latest figure, which remains down 4.06 million workers on ETA payroll records. So the pool of who could be laid-off or terminated for nearly five years was significantly reduced for the President’s faltering economy.

Enter Thomas Perez on July 23rd and something incredible happened. Each of the past five weeks have managed what never before occurred for the Obama Administration with each of Perez’ counts coming in under 300,000. Over the entirety of the new Secretary’s tenure, the 282,160 average bested the July readings ahead of his swearing in by 95,639. That kind of drop  is unprecedented on any sustained level and suggests the next readings we see on employers’ payroll quarterly counts should vault into a range even Bush’s workforce growth didn’t manage during 19 straight quarters of jobs growth before the modest loss of just 15,557 jobs in the final count handed over to Obama on the reliable, verified employers’ payroll record counts, as opposed to questionable BLS survey-based figures. Since the Obama Administration has reached a rate of job growth mostly in the 500,000 to 600,000 range during calendar quarters from late 2011 onward, this unprecedented shift should lead to somewhere in the range of 1.1 to 1.25 million jobs added to the economy when the next quarterly payroll workforce count is released in early October. Obviously, that’s assuming Perez’ ETA counts are real and the growth rate that struggled to add enough jobs to employ new entrants to the workforce has reached a level capable of reemploying discouraged workers from among the 105 million purged from gainful employment who’ve fallen off BLS counts at a rate of 3 to 1 over those rare Americans who’ve returned to work.

Count me skeptical of the latest weekly job loss counts. They’re simply too different and an inexplicable, anomolous phenomenon, in light of the Obama Administration never before having managed numbers approaching Perez’ surprising figures. Then again, the average for the five-week stretch still pales in comparison to Bush’s 2007 figures, which averaged 258,751 for August and September combined, while the two end-of-summer months job loss counts across four-years from 2004 through 2007 averaged an impressive 265,829. 
 
Of course, there always seem to be a range of mechanisms for the self-proclaimed transparent Obama Administration to practice sleight of hand once more. His smoke and mirrors pretend leadership reminds of a magician who is practiced at deception. Perhaps, an escape artist is the more apt comparison, with Harry Houdini and Doug Henning generally regarded as the top illusionists of their generation coming to mind. Remarkably, both died at age 52, which President Obama turned this past August 4th. Given the Administration’s failings Americans have painfully had to endure, with tens of millions of lives shattered, my guess is the President is more likely to approach illusionist and escape artist Dean Gunnarson’s fate on Halloween, 1983. He was brought up from his signature underwater coffin escape without having accomplished his intended escape and was presumed dead on the same day Houdini died in 1926. His will to survive and emergency care brought the accomplished smoke and mirrors performer back to life in the hospital, after which his efforts toward international acclaim as an illusionist continued undeterred.

This Labor Day, countless Americans are beyond desperate to return to work. If the remarkable shift under Perez is real, the latest job growth rate would return the millions purged from jobs under Obama to gainful employment in little more than 10 years. Of course, that’s assuming the figures are real and immigration numbers, including the unpopular Gang of Eight and Congressional legislation in support of amnesty, don’t lead to increases in the foreign workforce with continued growth and separation from native born workers’ participation rates. Taking a wrong turn in that ugly road will surely mean millions never recover from the loss of jobs under
Obama.
 
This is hardly a worker friendly Administration, so Obama’s absence and silence on Labor Day while the middle class is all but wiped out, seems like a fitting response from someone no more in tune with his countrymen than Marie Antoinette with starving French peasants who answered the Monarchy with revolt.


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