Employment picked up more than forecast in April and the jobless rate unexpectedly declined to a four-year low of 7.5 percent, showing the early stages of government budget cuts failed to destabilize the U.S. labor market.
Payrolls expanded by 165,000 workers last month following a revised 138,000 increase in March that was larger than first estimated, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The median forecast of 90 economists surveyed by Bloomberg projected a 140,000 gain. Revisions to the prior two months’ reports added a total of 114,000 jobs to the employment count in February and March.
More sequestration is clearly the answer to our woes.
Maude
This is good news. We are coming out of the abyss.
The news will also change perceptions and will help.
We are far better off than the EU.
After Obamacare kicks in, we will see more business start ups and the big corporations will lode their “death grip” on employees.
Alex S.
Indeed, another seuqestration/debt ceiling/blackmail scenario is the only option left for the Republicans.
EconWatcher
Here’s what I’m trying to figure out:
We had an unsustainable bubble economy before, and many of the jobs back then were unproductive and won’t come back. But is the economy now being rebuilt sustainable?
One example that I know something about is the market for legal services: It was an insane seller’s market for more than two decades, with just a few interruptions along the way. And so top grads with almost no practical abilities were getting jobs in New York law firms with a starting salary of $150k, and every Tom-Dick-and-Harry was going to law school.
But this was driven, directly or indirectly, by the bloated and unsustainable financial sector. Things have changed drastically now, with grads from even the best law schools struggling to get jobs, and even Harvard Law grads with several decades of experience facing layoffs if they don’t have their own book of business. I don’t think the old market will come back. And truth be told, this is probably good for the country.
But what’s emerging now? Is it something that depends on the unnatural and unsustainable environment of zero interest rates (as necessary as they might be)? It’s very hard to tell.
Comrade Jake
I’m sorry but, won’t the take-home message for Republicans be that sequestration works?
Feudalism Now!
Imagine the gains without sequestration. Imagine the losses as unpaid furloughs hit the economy. Nihilists all
the Conster
@EconWatcher:
Steve Rattner on Mornin’ Ho said 100% of the jobs are service sector jobs – not the well paying kind of jobs that create strong consumer demand for manufactured products.
danimal
@Comrade Jake: If sequestration works this well, imagine how we’d do with a new debt ceiling crisis.
/GOP POV
Schlemizel
@Comrade Jake:
YEah, that is my fear exactly.
“See, we told you cutting Fed spending would make everything better!”
Highway Rob
@Comrade Jake: I agree, and Benen’s “without the sequester we’d be doing even better” seems an unconvincing response, however true it might be. If we can’t bring the truth to a rhetoric fight, what should we bring?
dan
Confidence!
David Koch
these numbers were obviously faked by Obama to disperse decoys in the media river to confuse them, as they were just inches away from blowing open the Benghazi!1!1!!!11 story!
This will be bigger than Watergate! Nobody died when Nixon lied.
gene108
@EconWatcher:
Welcome to McDonald’s, would you like fries with that?
*******************************
I’d have to look at the report more closely, but from what I’ve seen there’s an uptick in manufacturing*, but I think a lot of the jobs are mostly lower wage service sector jobs.
I don’t think there’s a lot of mobility in the job market, i.e. people once making $10/hr are able to jump up to another job and make $20/hr, so I’m guessing there’s an expansion at the bottom of the wage scale.
*I find it ironic that conservatives talk about “good paying manufacturing jobs”, when the only reason those jobs paid well was because of high corporate taxes making it impractical to not invest in the business, lower executive pay, strong unions and labor laws, which are all things conservatives have worked to eliminate.
Patricia Kayden
@Comrade Jake: Does that matter at this point?
The bottom line is that Repubs are not going to raise taxes (by closing loopholes, for example) so the only way to end the sequestration is for President Obama/Dems to cave on SSN and other entitlement programs, while not doing anything about taxes.
Seems like the American public is okay with sequestration so far. When it begins to bite, perhaps they’ll put pressure on their Republican representatives and things will change.
someguy
The workforce participation rate is 63%, the lowest since 1979.
I think this is what we used to refer to, under Republican presidents, as a “jobless recovery.”
That’s okay though, no need to worry. Just talk about the declining unemployment rate – declining in large part due to workers who are long term unemployed and no longer seeking work – and that’ll keep the boobs distracted.
It’s a great economy… if you’re a billionaire with friends in the WH or on Capitol Hill, and a ton of money in the stock market in Fortune 500 companies. For everybody else, it doesn’t look all that great.
Elie
The only solution to this, in my opinion, is that the sequester has to be allowed to continue and for the pain from that to be made manifest. There will be lots of pain and lots of consequence but it can’t really be used against the Republicans politically until we have the stories. The sequester expires at the end of this fiscal year at the end of Sept. Thereafter, we are back to the regular process and by then, the damage done can be used as a cudgel on the heads of the Republicans AND the press. That is a good set up for the mid term elections. We have to make sure that people realize that while Head Start provides services to poor children, it is also an employer of people who are middle class. When seniors do not get their outpatient chemotherapy – they die. When providers don’t get paid — especially big institutional providers, they lay people off and again, people die or do not get needed care. I hope that the administration is setting up the process to report on these consequences and then lets see how this is such a win for the Republicans. They are assuming that only poor people will be hurt. I am saying that will be demonstratably incorrect.
Poopyman
Sequestration definitely worked for me! I’m still unemployed after being sequestered out of a job at the end of March.
Of course, I’m 2+ posts late to this one because I was out getting drinks for Mrs. P and me at Starbucks on this gorgeous spring day rather than being employed in a windowless SCIF in a drab office building, so don’t cry for me … yet.
Matt McIrvin
I’ve gotten into another argument with a bunch of people who think unemployment is high because today’s kids are too lazy and entitled to get a job. Evidence: someone knows some bright kids with college degrees who worked hard and got jobs. So things are just great and only lazy whiners whine about luck.
It is like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall.
Matt McIrvin
If the jobs numbers are good, it’s because spending cuts worked after all. If the jobs numbers are bad, it’s because of Obama’s out-of-control spending so we need more spending cuts. I don’t think there are any possible numbers that could actually improve the political/rhetorical situation.
flukebucket
@the Conster:
Surely Steve knows that those jobs have all been sent across the border and no longer pay well. If the Titans of Industry ever figure out a way to farm out the service jobs to slave labor that is exactly what they will do.
sparrow
@Elie:
Fixed.