PRESS RELEASE
In Obama’s America, Folks, This Passes for a ’Strong’ Jobs Report
Dec. 2, 2016 (EIRNS)—The Labor Department’s report for on U.S. employment in November, released today, showed another large exit of work eligible Americans from the labor force, which shrank again. Some 446,000 were reported to have dropped out of the work force in November, and the total of eligibles out of work force has gone back above 95 million. The official "headline" unemployment rate, as a result, dropped sharply from 4.9% to 4.6%, although the reported net employment gain for the month was only 178,000. And of that, the majority (108,000 of the increase was in part-time jobs, and just 17,000 could be called productive employment, all in residential construction.
Average hourly and weekly wages fell in November; they are both up about 2.4% over the year since last November, largely because of one big jump attributed to October. There continues a large increase in people holding multiple jobs to make ends meet.
It appears that the total job gain for the year 2016 will be reported at 2.2 million, compared to 2.8 million in 2015. Good-producing jobs gains in 2016 are far below 2015; outside construction, they are below zero.
The report was unaccountably taken as "strong" by financial media, and as guaranteeing a Federal Reserve rate increase this month. That had, in any case, been guaranteed by the sharp rise in long-term rates since Election Day, which has provoked losses estimated at $1.7 trillion in the most speculative bonds on global markets.
