Where The November Jobs Were: Accountants, Nurses, Waiters, Government And Part-Time Workers

Something remains very broken with the US labor market: while the unemployment rate just dropped to the lowest since August 2007, wage growth dropped as well and on a year over year basis, rose just 2.5%, far below the 3.8% it was when the unemployment rate last hit 4.7%. This continues to vex economists who have vowed that if only one lowers the unemployment rate far enough, all the slack in the labor market will be soaked up. Alas, that is not happening, for several reasons, the chief of which is that the quality of jobs added remains subpar, with wage growth – especially for less than “supervisory” and management positions – declining. Furthermore, as noted earlier, both part-time jobs and multiple jobholders have been surging in recent months, ostensibly as a result of Obamacare pressures.
Still, according to the BLS at least, some 178,000 seasonally adjusted jobs were added in November, arbitrarily goalseeked as they may have been. Where were they? Here is the answer:
The most actively hiring sector was “Professional and business services” where employment rose by 63,000 in November, with accounting and bookkeeping services adding 18,000 jobs. Employment continued to trend up in administrative and support services, ( 36,000), computer systems design and related services ( 5,000), and management and technical consulting services ( 4,000). Health care employment rose by 28,000 in November. Within the industry, employment growth occurred in ambulatory health care services, i.e. nurses ( 22,000). As expected, the “Waiter and bartender” recovery continued, with 18,900 “food service and drinking places” jobs added.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Dec 2, 2016.

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