The Employment Situation for February 2024

Once again, US companies outperformed expectations last month, adding 353 thousand net jobs across their collective payrolls. 

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At the same time, the unemployment rate remained at 3.7% for the third consecutive month,  which marks 2 full years now that the national unemployment rate has been below 4%.

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That said, the report wasn’t exclusively good news, with the number of people who have been unemployed for more than 27 weeks rising by about 30 thousand to approximately 1.28 million last month, and that figure has grown by 200 thousand over the course of the last year, which is an increase of almost 20% year over year.

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There has also been a noteworthy uptick in the number of people who want a job but are not currently counted as unemployed because they weren’t actively seeking or were unable to take a job over the prior 4 weeks. That figure rose by about 120 thousand over the last month, climbing to about 5.8 million, which is up by about 475 thousand over the last 12 months.

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Still, the total number of people who want a job but don’t have one for whatever reason makes up less than 7% of the prospective labor force, which remains historically low, and the labor force participation rate continues to hold steady at 62.5%.

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With regard to job growth, professional and business services saw the largest increase in new payroll entries at plus 74 thousand, followed closely by the healthcare industry at 70 thousand. 

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Retail employment also had a great month, adding 45 thousand jobs, while government, social assistance, and manufacturing jobs grew by an average of about 30 thousand jobs per industry. The information sector also added about 15 thousand new jobs.

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There was little change in the net payroll figures across the construction, wholesale, financial activities, leisure and hospitality, and transportation and warehousing industries, although there was a net loss of about 5 thousand mining, quarrying, oil and gas extraction jobs.

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The average workweek fell another two-tenths of an hour to 34.1, which is down a half hour in total over the last 12 months, while average hourly earnings rose 19 cents to $34.55.

Mployer Advisor’s Take

On top of the additional 350 plus thousand new jobs added last month, this latest economic report also upwardly revised the job figures from the prior two months by more than 30%, accounting for an additional 126 thousand new jobs that had gone previously unreported.

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Further, a closer look at the very stable 3.7% unemployment rate reveals that the true figure is closer to 3.66% - down from 3.74% the month before, and predictions of imminent recession are far more scarce and less severe than they were at the beginning of each of the past 2 years.

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For the time being at least, the economy and the labor market continue humming along and the prospect for continued stability appears more likely than a near-term downturn. 

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Perhaps what has changed the most over the last few months is that people are finally taking greater note of these favorable economic conditions and are feeling somewhat more optimistic that these conditions will remain favorable than they had been in the past.

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As always, these positive economic trends are always vulnerable to unknown factors ranging from international conflict to viral resurgence, but as has been the case for many months now, the trends look good for the time being at least. 

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