Wow! The job market is great, amirite?

Things have never been better for the American worker.

Almost any way you slice it, things are getting tighter in the U.S. labor market, which should translate to faster pay gains for American workers in 2017.
Employers in the U.S. stepped up hiring in November, adding 178,000 workers to payrolls, and the jobless rate unexpectedly tumbled 0.3 percentage point to a nine-year low of 4.6 percent, a Labor Department report showed Friday. The number of involuntary part-time workers dropped to an eight-year low and the so-called underemployment rate was the smallest since April 2008.
“We’re at full employment,” said Michael Gapen, chief U.S. economist at Barclays Plc in New York. “The slack is gone and we’re now creating scarcity.” This is “consistent with modestly firming wage growth.”

That sounds awesome.
But wait a sec. Why did this happen?
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Average hourly earnings unexpectedly fell 0.1 percent in November, pushing the year-over-year growth rate down to 2.5 percent, though the disappointing data on worker pay may be a timing issue.

Since when do wages fall in a "tight labor market"?
And why did 446,000 Americans drop out of the labor force in November?

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And finally, if the job market is so tight and the number of involuntary part-time workers at an eight-year low, why are full-time jobs still vanishing while people holding multiple part-time jobs still going up?
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Something doesn't add up?

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featheredsprite's picture

And it looks like it will for a long time.

I would really enjoy being wrong in that prediction.

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Life is strong. I'm weak, but Life is strong.

Steven D's picture

You can always find that pearl among the pig shit. R's do it, and D's do it. And the obedient stenographers in the mainstream media will report it without questioning the validity of the "facts" they're being spoon fed, therein incorporating it into the Fake News narrative of the day they're pushing.

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"You can't just leave those who created the problem in charge of the solution."---Tyree Scott

boriscleto's picture

Because it doesn't fit the narrative the Infotainment branch wants to tell?

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" In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry, and is generally considered to have been a bad move. -- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy "

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Wink

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I know older workers laid off from high tech who after 2 years are yet to find a job. Others found jobs outside of high tech at much lower salaries. One guy I used to work with is driving a bus for seniors--which is honorable work, but in salary not comparable.

Good point about lower wages in a supposedly hot job market. It was a point that people were making about high tech companies claiming they needed H1B labor because they could not find people in America--which indicates low supply and high demand. And according to the laws of the market, salaries should have gone up. But American salaries did not go up in areas where tech companies demanded more H1B visas.

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Hetrose's picture

As they are the government, they can just lie. Government always lies about employment, etc. If what the nation likes is for the government to lie to it about, well just about everything, then the satisfaction rating the government gets from the people is about to go through the roof...if we had a roof.

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Deja's picture

I was able to read your response to my private message, after seeing you mentioned in the catalogue, but only in my email. (I ticked the box that said to send myself a copy.) But, when I came here to reply back, neither of our messages was there. Not sure where they went, but wanted you to know that I didn't ignore you. Seeing your name in the comments column reminded me about it.

Strange, but thanks for responding!

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because they had not looked for work in the past 4 weeks.

I think it's called the "headline number" because that's what many people glance at and it's an easy way to mislead them.

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"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"

riverlover's picture

and believe? Full employment after many have given up looking for crap jobs and have (I hope) joined the underground economy. Barter or kill off the rich relative who has said there is a big bequeath?

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Hey! my dear friends or soon-to-be's, JtC could use the donations to keep this site functioning for those of us who can still see the life preserver or flotsam in the water.