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Latest U.S. Employment Figures Show Collapse of Production

Aug. 5, 2016 (EIRNS)—Today’s Bureau of Labor Statistics employment report for July says 255,000 jobs were created. To begin with, these are "adjusted" figures, which means, fiddled. Even so, none of these new jobs are in manufacturing, construction, mining or any area of the physical economy. There was a loss of 8,000 in mining (oil and gas). The increase in employment was entirely in leisure and hospitality, retail sales, health services, and the like. Wages increased by 0.08 percent, and 2.6% over the past 12 months.

The unadjusted figures provide more clarity. There was a net loss of 1,030,000 jobs in July, a month which is typically down, but this past July is a somewhat larger loss than July 2015, and comparable to July in 2014 and 2013.

There was a net gain in jobs for the 12 months since July 2015, which is now set at 2.3 million, or an average of about 190,000 per month. However, productive employment, unadjusted for the year since July 2015, show what’s been happening: manufacturing -28,000; mining -134,000; construction +109,000; total goods-producing employment -53,000 for the year.

The BLS Household Survey shows ca. 400,000 net entry to the workforce in July—out of workforce which is now 93,700,000.

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