August’s job numbers aren’t that hot

The job market was lousy again in Augu💙st, and next month things will look even worse.

I know, that’s not what other people are saying. On Wall Street and on those TV business channels that kowtow to the financial comꦜmunity, 💮the 169,000 gain in new jobs reported Friday was described as acceptable.

But yesterday’s number — that 169,000 gain plus an artificial drop in the unemployment rate to 7.3 pe👍rcent, from 7.4 percent — was bad news all around.

First, the gain of 169,000 jobs was enough to allow the Federal Reserve to start cutting back — “tapering” is the word people like to use — its deadly “quantitative-easing” moღney-printing program.

The next Fed meeting is later this month, and tha𒐪t’s when this tapering process could ♛begin.

One part of ♛Wall Street was hoping the August employment report would be horrible so that those members of the Fed’s Open Market Committee who don’t want to taper would have more ammunition.

But at 169,000, the headline figure didn’t support the so-called doves on the FOMC🌟. That’s bad news.

Second, the Labor Department corrected its two previous months of employmꦯent 💖data.

June’s job growth, it turns out, wasn’t 188,000, as previously reported. It was only 172,000. And the earlier-reported gain of 162,000 jobs in July was also incorrect. July’s improvement ⛄was revised down to just 104,000 jobs.

This is one of those “I told you so” moments that my readers have come to love. As I’ve said over and over in 😼this column, the Labor Department makes wild assumptions about jobs it 🐷thinks — but can’t prove — are being created by newly formed companies.

It announces the bloated number and then corrects it later when people are distr♎acted by the next 🌠month’s headline number.

So, you can expect August’s 169,ඣ000 gain to 🎶also be reduced in the future. The Labor Department added 90,000 of these phantom jobs to August’s count.

The third piece of bad news: the aforementioned drop in the unemployment rate, to 7.3 percent, in August. The Pollyannas out there will look to this as the bright side of Friday’s report🌠.

But the problem is that the “participation rate” in the workforce declined to 63.2 percent in August, from 63.4 percꦺent in Jul🍰y.

When 🌼people tell government surveyors that they have left the workforce, those people are no longer counted as unemployed. In a healthy economy, the unemployment rate declines because people have found jobs, not because they have quit looking.

Finally, the fourth bit of bad news: The common belief is that 250,000 new job🌠s are needed every month just to accommodate people trying to enter the workforce for the first time.

So, 169,000 new jobs can be a good number oꦓnly if you buy into the notion that people have suddenly and voluntarily decided not to work. And that notion is too 🐻far-fetched for me.

In Tuesday’s column, I wilᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚl explain why the September employment numbers could ♏be a real downer.