Lots of Fake Job Openings. Not Enough Actual Jobs.
America's Job Problem Got Worse In May
While the Senate was busy passing President Trump’s One Big Ugly Beautiful Failure Bill, the Bureau of Labor Statistics was highlighting America’s ongoing economic failure: lack of jobs.
That unmistakable takeaway from the May Job Openings and Labor Turnover Summary report, which began in the BLS’ usual anodyne rhetoric of “little changed.”
The number of job openings was little changed at 7.8 million in May, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the month, both hires and total separations were little changed at 5.5 million and 5.2 million, respectively. Within separations, quits (3.3 million) and layoffs and discharges (1.6 million) changed little.
However, even corporate media had to concede that the report showed a bit more than “little change”—and that much of what it showed was not good.
U.S. job openings unexpectedly increased in May, but a decline in hiring added to signs that the labor market had shifted into lower gear amid uncertainty over the Trump administration's tariffs on imports, with a 90-day pause on higher reciprocal duties drawing to an end.
What the BLS calls “little changed” was fake job openings rising, while hires fell.
The May JOLTS report is quite a climbdown from the April report, which had made a case for guarded optimism about US labor markets, delivering a small but important win for Donald Trump and his agenda..
Compared to the April report, net hiring in the May report decreased.
Per the JOLTS report, in Manufacturing there was actual job loss.
There was job loss in Construction as well.
The most notable positive indicator in the May JOLTS report was that layoffs continue to trend down while quits continue to trend up.
While these two trends broadly suggest improving health for the jobs market, it is difficult to reconcile such an interpretation with the reality of the job losses in key economic sectors.
The May JOLTS report instead delivers more confirmation that the jobs recession in this country got worse in May.
However many jobs employers did manage to create in May were clearly not enough.
America needs to put a great many more people back to work before the jobs recession can plausibly be considered to be over. America needs to dramatically reverse the shedding of manufacturing jobs if President Trump is to realize his Agenda 47 promise of making the United States a manufacturing superpower.
A prosperous nation is one that actually puts its people to work and does not merely talk about putting people to work.
According to the May JOLTS report, we got a lot of talk (job openings) and not a lot of action (net hiring) on the month. That is not a good jobs situation for any economy.
Bless you for continuing to show the actual data in everything, and not the spin. You are so good at this, Peter!
Maybe now that most of the war drama has simmered down (except for the lost cause of Ukraine, poor souls), Trump will be able to focus on restructuring the economy towards an emphasis on manufacturing. There will be a time lag, so if he wants to have the political win of new jobs before the midterms, he knows he has to get cracking. Make America Great Again, Mr. President!
Zusätzlich hat sich die Zahl der Obdachlosen verdoppelt....