Final Pre-Jobs Report Thoughts

Tomorrow the August Jobs Report data will be released. The report is based upon two data sets, the Current Population Survey (CPS) data which is job-centric and the Current Employment Statistics (CES) data which is worker-centric. The quoted data will be the seasonally adjusted data. Reality is the non-adjusted data. When we look at the two sets of data from an annual growth perspective a few trends appear.

We are adding fewer jobs this year than  2006. This is important to notice because the recession was still more than one year away from us at that time. We are also growing slower than we did during 2012 - another election year.

President Bush had 67 months of Job Growth. The streak that President Obama references is the Seasonally Adjusted CES worker growth. This is the CPS growth which is strictly full-time and part-time jobs. President Obama is in the process of a 71 month steak of NSA CPS job Growth.

President Obama has a streak of 72 months of worker growth. The growth in workers is faster than the growth of jobs. This would seem like a good thing until you realize that the CES number double counts people working two jobs. You will also notice that President Bush had a streak of 52 consecutive months of Annual CES worker growth. The rate of worker growth is slower this year than it was during 2015. It is slower than it was during May, June and July of 2013. The July CES Annual worker growth was slower than July 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015 and was even slower than July 2005 and July 2006.

Worker Growth and Job Growth is slowing. We have not seen negative job growth in either measure. That is a double negative. We are still seeing Worker and Job Growth, year over year.  It is fairly certain that we will see CPS jobs decline during August. This happens every August. We should nee non-seasonally adjusted CES worker growth. This is the difference between the two data sets.If we see annual CPS job growth it could be a warning shot of what is coming.

For more detail on changes in full-time employment, part-time employment, unemployment, and participation levels August Jobs Report Preview Column.