July Employment: Merely Bad

Arriving the day after a stock market plunge set off renewed talk of a "double dip" recession, the July employment report almost looks good because it is merely bad.  According to the BLS, in July the economy added 117,000 jobs and the unemployment rate ticked down to 9.1% (from 9.2%).

Employment growth of 117,000 is just about the "treading water" level needed to keep up with population growth and productivity improvements, so it doesn't represent any progress in digging out of a deep hole.   Government continued to be a drag - private employment rose by 154,000, but government jobs fell by 37,000 (of which state government accounted for 23,000, which the BLS says was "almost entirely" due to the Minnesota shutdown).

Also, the employment growth figures for May and June, which had contributed to the economic fears, were revised up to 53,000 and 46,000, respectively (still quite bad, but better than 25,000 and 18,000 previously announced).

Employment (Nonfarm Payrolls, Seasonally Adj.)

The decline in the unemployment rate was due to people leaving the labor force, not job gains - in the survey of households (different from the survey of firms from which the headline jobs number is calculated), the number of people employed fell by 38,000, but the number of people in the labor force fell by 193,000.  The labor force participation rate therefore decreased, as did the employment-population ratio.

Employment-Population Ratio (Seasonally Adj.)

Not a good report, but one that suggests the economy is stagnating, not falling into a recession.  That might take the some of the edge off of yesterday's panic, but, then again, a little panic might be what we need to rouse policymakers into action....