Friday, July 22, 2016

Seasonally Adjust the Job Numbers and Nice Increase Drops 45%

No real new news came from the June jobs release this afternoon from the Department Workforce Solutions. The year over year (June 2015 to June 2016) wage job increase figure did improve to 14,000, almost five times the 2,900 new jobs reported from May 2015 to May 2016. So I guess that’s news. The performance is not considered statistically significant by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which also released figures today.
On a seasonally adjusted basis, the BLS said, the year over year increase as 7,700, or 0.93%. Seasonally adjusted, the state has added 2,000 jobs since April. Not much.
At 6.2%, the state’s June unemployment rate remains statistically significantly higher than the national rate of 4.9%.
The same-old-same-old is that 70% of the increase, or 9,800 jobs, came from the education and health services sector, which mostly means Medicaid.
Another 5,300 jobs came from leisure and hospitality, which is mostly tourism and is having a good year, according to the Tourism Department. The sector’s 5.9% increase was the largest, DWS said, since sector sectors began in 1990.
Mining (mostly oil and gas production) and logging added 400 jobs during May. The year over year loss was 5,900 jobs, the smallest since November 2015. This report is consistent with national reports that oil production firms are adding a few jobs.
Between May and June unemployment grew another 332 people, a 13.2% jump, and at 9.7% ranked third highest in the state. The Farmington unemployment rate is 9.1%.
Professional and business services, home to landscape architects and technical consultants, added 3,900 jobs over the year, a nice 3.8% increase. The PBS sector reclaimed the 100,000-job level in April.

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