At first glance, the July jobs report released this morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics looks like good news, and it certainly is better news than some recent reports, with a headline seasonally adjusted number of 528,000 new nonfarm jobs and the unemployment rate, at 3.5 percent, finally back to where it was before the pandemic. An ecstatic New York Times report by Jim Tankersley was headlined “The jobs report suggests President Biden is right about a recession,” drawing gratitude from White House chief of staff Ron Klain:
Kudos, @nytimes pic.twitter.com/UH1PYuuGpO
— Ronald Klain (@WHCOS) August 5, 2022
Much of the press coverage was similarly straight out of the Biden White House’s hymnal. But a closer look at the numbers suggests why a lot of workers are not feeling so thrilled right now. Comparing the seasonally adjusted numbers for July 2022 with the previous month, we see:
- 71,000 fewer people working full-time jobs;
- 384,000 more people working part-time jobs. There was an overall growth of 303,000 more people working part-time who would prefer full-time, driven by a growth of 331,000 more people in full-time jobs being cut back to part-time (what the report refers to as “slack” work);
- 92,000 more people working multiple jobs;
- 279,000 fewer people self-employed; and
- 63,000 fewer people in the civilian labor force, after a decline of 353,000 in June. Overall, there are 623,000 fewer people in the workforce compared with February 2020, and the workforce participation rate dropped slightly, from 62.2 percent to 62.1 percent.
When you put these numbers in the context of an economy with high inflation, the stock markets down, interest rates up, and GDP sagging, you get a picture of a lot of people working either more than they want to (picking up a second job) or less than they need to (getting part-time work instead of full-time work), and fewer people working as their own boss — all while employers face a shrinking workforce unable to fill all the open positions.