In the wake of Friday’s dismal labor report that dismal scientists across the country shrugged off as a one-off event come a couple of interesting (and pretty disconcerting) data points for the U.S. labor market that appeared on the intertubes this morning.
First, from this item at David Stockman’s Contra Corner blog comes the chart below showing what U.S. nonfarm payrolls look like without what can only be described as a more than decade long education and health care (mostly the latter) jobs juggernaut.
In short, while the U.S. population has increased by more than 30 million over the last 14 years, there have been no net-job gains in the U.S. labor force when health care and education workers are removed from the totals, what Stockman calls “a fatuous shibboleth”.
Also… from this IBD report on workweek hours separated by low-wage and non-low-wage workers comes more confirmation that it’s getting tougher and tougher for the former since, not only are their wages stagnant in real terms going back many years, but their hours worked have recently declined to a record low.
That early-2014 plunge was due to the severe winter weather that wreaked havoc on both the U.S. economy and the economic data, but that post-2011 trend is not anybody’s friend.
