While it’s so entertaining to blather on and on about the double talk and deception in the Middle East conflict (they say that all’s fair in love and war, right), life does in fact continue over on this side of the planet as well. And boy oh boy is it exciting.
The highly anticipated BLS Jobs Report was released (on time!) this morning, and the headline Unemployment Rate absolutely stole the show. Wait for it…. It stayed the same at 4.3%. No one saw that scorcher coming. I kid, I kid. Actually, everyone did; it’s been within 0.2% of that figure for the last 18 months.
However, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (where every kid wants to work when they grow up) did actually convey some thought provoking data. For starters there are almost two million people who’ve been completely out of work for over six months. That figure has been steadily increasing from 1.18 million since 2023.
Furthermore. we’ve seen a significant decline in full-time workers and a commensurate rise in people only working part time over the last few years. So while the headline Unemployment Rate has been stable, the underlying calculations lead one to theorize significant erosion occurring in the labor market.
