U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

Federal Reserve’s Inflation Targets Still Elusive

Posted: June 12, 2019 at 10:25 am

The Federal Reserve really wants inflation to be at or close to 2.0% per year, and it has a threshold for up to 2.5% inflation before it worries that prices ...
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Careful What You Wish For: Weak May Payrolls Meet Lower Revisions for April and March

Posted: June 7, 2019 at 10:00 am

It has to be an interesting time when the stock market is hoping for slower growth and weaker economic news. That's a recipe that might just tempt Jerome Powell and ...
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Unemployment in These 3 States Post All-Time Lows

Posted: May 18, 2019 at 7:25 am

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has released its monthly unemployment numbers by state. The BLS collection and posting of state job statistics began in 1976. Three states had their lowest ...
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April Showers Means More Jobs for the Economy

Posted: May 3, 2019 at 10:10 am

If you were expecting a weak jobs report, this was the wrong first Friday of the month for you. ADP had telegraphed a very strong private sector payrolls report earlier ...
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March Payrolls and Unemployment Act as a Goldilocks Report for the Economy

Posted: April 5, 2019 at 9:50 am

It looks like the fears about the jobs market might have been misguided. All the warning signs were signaling that the jobs market strength was waning, but the Bureau of ...
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More Evidence That Jobs Market Is Peaking

Posted: March 21, 2019 at 10:05 am

Since the robust growth of the economy began to peter out in late 2018, economists, business owners and investors alike have looked to see if the jobs market would begin ...
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The Real Unemployment Rate Is Nearly Double What You Think

Posted: March 9, 2019 at 9:10 am

The unemployment rate for February was released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). Economists worried that the country added only 20,000 jobs for the most recent period, well ...
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Weak Payrolls May Have Issues Ahead Other Than Just Weaker Business Trends

Posted: March 8, 2019 at 9:45 am

Some reports from the U.S. Department of Labor show stronger than expected monthly payroll gains, while others do not. The case for February was the latter. The U.S. economy reported ...
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Will the Fed Notice the Inflation Trends Ahead?

Posted: February 13, 2019 at 9:20 am

In the Federal Reserve's endless quest to raise interest rates in the past two years, one of the big concerns with a strong economy and with better wage growth was ...
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Strong Economy Conundrum: 1 Million More Job Openings Than Available Workers

Posted: February 12, 2019 at 11:35 am

It turns out that the jobs market can keep improving. In the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS), the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) indicated that the number of ...
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January Brought Big Payroll Gains, Government Shutdown or Not

Posted: February 1, 2019 at 10:00 am

The jobs market continues to be strong. Government shutdown or not, this looked like a big report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for January's employment situation. The BLS reported ...
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Lost Manufacturing Jobs Create King-Size Ripple Effects

Posted: January 23, 2019 at 10:55 am

Last month, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that there were 12.84 million manufacturing jobs in the United States, more than a third below the 80-year high of 19.55 ...
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Unemployment Drops Below 3% in 10 States

Posted: January 20, 2019 at 6:42 am

In December, the unemployment rate was 3.9% nationwide, according to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. However, in ten states, it was much lower than that, dropping below ...
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Producer Price Index Moves From Inflation Back to Deflation

Posted: January 15, 2019 at 10:10 am

Not that long ago, the Federal Reserve and the financial markets were worried about endless inflation ahead. Zoom forward into 2019, with lower oil prices and the Fed admitting it ...
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10 Best (and Worst) Months for Jobs Since the Recession

Posted: January 6, 2019 at 6:09 am

The new U.S. Bureau of Labor (BLS) report of monthly net job additions and unemployment showed the economy added 312,000 jobs, the eighth best month in the decade since the ...
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