NBC: Jobs Report Wasn't So Great After All

When consuming economic news, it is important to look beneath the surface to see more fully what is happening.

Jobs growth at 321,000 new jobs!  Really? What kind of jobs?

Skepticism is not cynicism.  Consider who is saying what about jobs.  See the line: "Analysts, though, mostly gushed at the report."   PB
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From CNBC.com:

Consider it a brutal lesson in government math.

Friday's turbocharged jobs headline came thanks to seasonal adjustments and other wizardry at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which reported that U.S. job growth hit 321,000 even as the unemployment rate held steady at 5.8 percent.

Those numbers, courtesy of establishment survey estimates, sound nice on the surface...

However, the household survey, which is an actual head count, presents details that show there's still plenty of work to do.

A few figures to consider: That big headline number translated into just 4,000 more working Americans.

There were, at the same time, another 115,000 on the unemployment line...

The jobs that were created skewed heavily toward lower quality.

Full-time jobs declined by 150,000, while part-time positions increased by 77,000....

Analysts, though, mostly gushed over the report...

But there were several other points not to like in the report.

Families, for instance, also were under pressure:

There were 110,000 fewer married men at work, while married women saw their ranks shrink by 59,000...

Finally, there was a rather startling numerical coincidence: That same 321,000 figure was repeated later in the report—as the total number of bar and restaurant jobs created over the past 12 months.
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Link: www.cnbc.com/id/102243878