Jobs: Even worse than it sounds

So they say the economy “lost 50,000 jobs” last month. As a few keep noting, just to stay even the economy that is neither hot nor cold, but just clipping along, should add about 130,000 to 140,000 actual jobs every month merely to keep up with the growing population in the working population age group. That population has been increasing about 200,000 per month (213,000 last month, actually), with about one-third of those genuinely opting not to join the work force (when netted with the work force drop-outs). That means in real terms, last month’s loss was over 180,000 jobs lost all told: 50,000 numerical loss + 130,000 needed.

But it’s really worse even than that. So the labor force grew by 213,000, meaning something just under 200,000 new jobs were needed (based on staying at a 5%+ unemployment rate). About 195,000 of those should have been full-time jobs, but in fact, the raw number of full-time jobs declined by almost 310,000! In other words, the new real loss of full-time jobs was over 500,000 – 310,000+ 195,000. That's half a million full-time jobs lost in real terms in one month.

Oh, yes, GDP numbers don’t add up to an official recession – and ExxonMobil has unbelievable profits.