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Ed Dolan’s Econ Blog US Private Sector Jobs Grow at Fastest Pace since Dot.Com Boom Feb 7, 2015 Terms of Use: These slides are provided under Creative Commons License Attribution—Share Alike 3.0 . You are free to use these slides as a resource for your economics classes together with whatever textbook you are using. If you like the slides, you may also want to take a look at my textbook, Introduction to Economics, from BVT Publishing.

Strong Upward Revisions Add to
Job Gains  The economy added a robust 257,000 payroll jobs in January 2014, according to a preliminary report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics  Upward revisions added 147,000 jobs for November and December, in addition to strong gains already reported  Smaller revisions for earlier months reflect annual “rebenchmarking” February 7, 2015 Ed Dolan’s Econ Blog

Fastest Private Job Growth Since
Dot.Com Boom  Over the 12 months since January 2014, the economy added 3,127,000 new private sector jobs  That was the fastest 12-month rate of job creation since the dot.com boom of the 1990s  Over the course of the year, total government jobs decreased by 80,000 February 7, 2015 Ed Dolan’s Econ Blog

Unemployment Rate at 5.7 Percent
 The US unemployment rate rose fractionally to 5.7 percent in January, remaining near its low for the recovery.  The unemployment rate is the ratio of unemployed persons to the labor force. The labor force grew by 1,051,000 for the month. The number of employed persons increased by 759,000 and the number of unemployed increased by 291,000  The household survey on which unemployment data are based uses a different methodology from the establishment survey of payroll jobs February 7, 2015 Ed Dolan’s Econ Blog

Broad vs. Standard Unemployment Rate
 The BLS also provides a broader measure of job-market stress, U-6  The numerator of U-6 includes  Unemployed persons  Marginally attached persons who would like to work but are not looking because they think there are no jobs, or for personal reasons  Part-time workers who would prefer full-time work but can’t find it  The denominator includes the labor force plus the marginally attached  U-6 rose to 11.3 percent in January, near its low for the recovery February 7, 2015 Ed Dolan’s Econ Blog

Long-term Unemployment  Signs of
slack in the labor market remain, including a level of long-term unemployment that has remained very high by historical standards  In January 2014, 31.5 percent of all unemployed workers had been out of a job for 27 weeks or longer February 7, 2015 Ed Dolan’s Econ Blog

Involuntary Part-Time Workers  Another
sign of slack is the large number of people working part time “for economic reasons,” that is, because they can only find part-time work or because their employers have cut their hours due to slack demand  The percentage of the labor force working part time for economic reasons fell to a new low for the recovery in January, but it remains higher now than it was before the Great Recession began February 7, 2015 Ed Dolan’s Econ Blog

The Bottom Line: Labor Market
Strong but Room to Grow  The labor market is improving strongly and, by some indicators, is approaching levels consistent with the Fed’s mandate to maintain “maximum employment”  However, low inflation and broader indicators of job slack suggest that there is no hurry to tighten policy. Significant room for growth remains. February 7, 2015 Ed Dolan’s Econ Blog

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