Blogarama: The Oldest Blog Directory

Dull.  Nondescript.  Undistinctive.  Unsurprising.  Inconclusive.  Those words could be used to describe this morning’s Bureau of Labor Statistics federal empl… Read More

Our annual promises to ourselves have three requirements which are both necessary and sufficient.  First, they must be things we can personally control – no fair, for example, res… Read More

Historians, if they care, will say that 2015 was a slow year on the employment front.  It was more than that, though, and those of us who lived through it know what else was afoot. … Read More

With the Chinese stock implosion and corresponding market nosedive here, we especially needed good Bureau of Labor Statistics employment data.  And we got it – on the surface.&nbs… Read More

When I read this morning’s Bureau of Labor Statistics Economic News Release, I thought the American Job Shortage Number would stay about the same as last month’s 17.485 million… Read More

Yesterday morning’s Bureau of Labor Statistics data release was a good one.  The headline seasonally adjusted official unemployment rate reached another post-recession low of 5.0%… Read More

On Thursday evening, I will be giving a presentation, “How to Find a Lasting Career in the New Age of Work,” at Waubonsee Community College west of Chicago.  Unfortunately I… Read More

Beyond the unchanged 5.1% marquee jobless rate, a lot happened in September.On the good side, unadjusted unemployment hit an almost eight-year low at 4.9%.  The economy added 142,000 ne… Read More

The Fed dodged its own bullet last week.About a year and a half ago, I wrote that Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen, who took the position in February 2014, had the right attitude for this… Read More

This morning, we got a particularly important set of Bureau of Labor Statistics employment numbers.  Articles had popped up all week about how they would affect the Federal Reserve&rsqu… Read More

I didn’t know what to expect with this morning’s jobs numbers – and, looking over the press, most others didn’t either.  We’re creeping closer to recession… Read More

According to at least one story issued late last night, our stock market was hoping for a “Goldilocks” jobs report.  That means not too bad (giving bad tidings of the econom… Read More

The Bureau of Labor Statistics March employment and unemployment data has arrived.  The bad news was that official joblessness ticked up to 5.0%, taking its first worsening since May to… Read More

In December 2013 I published “Six Points Against a Higher Minimum Wage.”  It became one of my most-read Work’s New Age blog posts, with more than 2,000 views to date… Read More

Lukewarm.  That’s how this morning’s Bureau of Labor Statistics April employment numbers felt, headed by an unchanged 5.0% official jobless rate.   We gained 160,0… Read More

“For most of their lives, Americans have thought all good people could find work and support themselves.  That is gone forever, and no economic recovery will bring it back.”… Read More

Commentators yesterday called this morning’s Bureau of Labor Statistics employment release “the big one,” and expected we would gain about 160,000 net new positions. … Read More

This morning, I was ready to declare a Pee-wee’s Playhouse era of federal employment reports – in other words, we’ll never know who or what we’ll see.  This mont… Read More

Four and a half years ago I released a book with the thesis that the jobs crisis was permanent.  I still stand by that, as although the official unemployment at press time was about dou… Read More

This morning’s Bureau of Labor Statistics July employment report could be called boring, but that might sound too derogatory.  It was encouraging, as we added 255,000 net new nonf… Read More

Same.  Same.  Same.  Good, but hardly super.  Likewise.These were some of my written notes next to numbers on my printout of this morning’s Employment Situation Sum… Read More

This morning, the jobs, population, and expatriate-count data told us something unfavorable.  No, it’s not the net new nonfarm positions added, which, while at 156,000 for Septemb… Read More

At first glance, this morning’s Bureau of Labor Statistics October employment report was nondescript.  There were 161,000 net new nonfarm positions created, a tad below the public… Read More

It was another good, steady, positive month on the employment front.  The marquee number of seasonally adjusted joblessness will take the headlines this morning, and well it should, sin… Read More

Not much was supposed to happen in this morning’s monthly Bureau of Labor Statistics national employment report – and not much did.Most of what was there, though, was good. … Read More

This morning’s monthly Bureau of Labor Statistics employment data had an odd pattern.  All the most important numbers were larger.  That held for those where increases were g… Read More

This morning’s Bureau of Labor Statistics employment data was superb.  All 9 of what I consider the front-line BLS statistics were positive.  Nonfarm payroll employment went… Read More

Already this year we’ve had remarkably headline-grabbing commentary on the direction of not only American jobs, but the country in general.  What have people been saying and how m… Read More

This morning the headline jobs number came in much worse than expected.  Far from a projection of 180,000, there were only 98,000 net new nonfarm positions created in March.  But d… Read More

Hard to believe, but it’s now been half a decade.I posted for the first time here on April 10th, 2012, with a preliminary welcome message.  Since then I have come back 262 times… Read More

Once again, the American employment situation exceeded its expected improvement.Estimates called for a gain of 189,000 net new nonfarm positions, with the adjusted jobless rate worsening fro… Read More

The federal jobs data took a breather last month.Although seasonally adjusted employment bettered yet again, from 4.4% to 4.3%, this morning’s Bureau of Labor Statistics report was a w… Read More

I didn’t know what to expect from this morning’s Bureau of Labor Statistics employment data.  The publicized forecasts, which have been getting less and less accurate, calle… Read More

According to the prognosticators of record, July was supposed to be another winner for employment, and it was.  We added another 209,000 net new nonfarm payroll positions, almost matchi… Read More

This morning’s Bureau of Labor Statistics employment data has arrived, and everything’s the same as it was.Reminiscent of those signs saying something like “on this spot in… Read More

The story going into this morning’s Bureau of Labor Statistics September report was about our two major mainland-affecting hurricanes, Irma and Harvey, and what their consequence would… Read More

I was surprised by this morning’s Bureau of Labor Statistics employment figures.  Were you?I wrote last month that September’s data was mangled by the storms, giving us stra… Read More

This may be the closest our nation’s employment situation has ever come to being unchanged by a Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation Summary.The good news, and almost all th… Read More

Since and including October 13th, when I said I could write a weekly blog on this topic alone, I have done almost that.  Except for two monthly issues on the AJSN and the jobs numbers… Read More

The word on the electronic street, coming in to this morning’s Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation Summary, was that it was going to be a good month, with 190,000 net new n… Read More

What’s been happening lately?  The smelliest story of last week, if not truly deserving of being the largest, was not quite how it was widely interpreted.  Our president&rsqu… Read More

The news is in from two classic American places this morning.  The first was discouraging but expected.  Washington, though, did better than Gobbler’s Knob.We were led to ant… Read More