Job streangth is implausible

While an increase of 94,000 jobs is nothing really to celebrate, it is "better than expected," and really better than likely.

EPI is never happy with an economy that is unfriendly to its workers, so it hasn't been happy for several years. They were up and running with a chart showing the gradual decline over the past two years. Still, the more radical weakness in the labor markets since the subprime meltdown has not shown up in the official statistics.

Here's an intro to EPI's note:

Another unexpectedly positive month for jobs, but with clear signs of weakness

by Jared Bernstein with research assistance from James Lin

Employers added 94,000 jobs last month, and unemployment held steady at 4.7%, as the nation's job market remains healthier than expected, according to today's report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Employment growth has clearly slowed in recent months (see Figure 1), reflecting fall out from the meltdown in the housing market. Revisions in today's report subtracted 48,000 jobs from the prior two months' gains, bringing the average monthly increase for the past three months to 103,000, compared to 168,000 in the comparable three month period last year.

Yet, for the second month in a row, payroll job gains exceeded economists' lowered expectations, suggesting the labor market has yet to consistently reflect the sharply slower growth thought to be occurring in the overall economy. The Household Survey data were particularly strong last month, posting an implausibly large jobs increase of just under 700,000, after falling 250,000 in October. For those who doubt the volatility of this variable, Figure 2 shows the extremely large monthly swings in the Household Survey employment data.

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Be clear that EPI is not casting aspersions on the data being purveyed by the administration. That is my job.