Jobs Friday: The Movie Trailer Effect
It’s Jobs Friday, and CNBC has been hyping it all week. A big jobs number is expected, and everyone is on edge. But as I watched the report today, I found myself questioning why I even bother. The print blew away expectations with 272,000 jobs added, yet unemployment rose to 4%. This is pure Fugazi—fake news.
The best way to describe the jobs report is like a movie trailer. How many times have you seen a fantastic trailer, only to find the movie itself is terrible? Remember the TV show Entourage and the movie Medellin? Great trailer, awful movie. This jobs report is no different—a sales job designed to impress.
I’m sure Jared Bernstein, Biden’s chief economic advisor, is out there touting these “wonderful” job numbers. But let’s break it down. Prior months’ job numbers were revised downward, as usual. And despite adding 272,000 jobs, the unemployment rate still rose, and the labor participation rate fell from 62.7% to 62.5%.
The establishment survey shows the headline number, but the household survey, which is more accurate, reported a loss of 408,000 working Americans. So, while the headline boasts 272,000 new jobs, the reality is that fewer people are actually working.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics includes something called the “birth-death adjustment” in their reports. This is an estimate of new business creation versus closures. It’s just a guess, a fabricated number to pad the stats.
Let’s also consider the number of full-time workers, which fell by 625,000 to the lowest level since February 2023. Meanwhile, part-time workers increased by 286,000. So, while the headline looks great, the underlying reality is quite different—a bad movie hidden behind a flashy trailer.
Job openings are another misleading metric. Many positions are always posted but never filled. HR departments use automated systems to keep listings up constantly, even if they aren’t actively hiring.
The real story is that getting a job, especially in fields like finance, is often about who you know, not about responding to job postings. The current job market is a bad movie pretending to be a blockbuster.
Despite the hype, the stock market futures fell sharply on this “hot” print. People worry the Fed might not lower rates, but I believe they will, sooner rather than later. This jobs report is a complete fabrication—a bad movie trailer trying to sell a terrible film.
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