Unemployment Plunges

Updates

Later, 10:18 p.m. central time: this is hilarious. Down below I noted that these newly employed folks will need to buy gasoline to get to work. Now, the AP via Rigzone says the price of oil rose today for that very reason: folks going back to work:

The price of oil rose Friday as a report showed a big gain in new jobs in the U.S. But gains were tempered by ongoing concerns about record oil supplies.

Later, 3:16 p.m. central time: I'm traveling so when I stop for coffee, it's not uncommon to see CNBC on the flat screen wherever I might be (better than CNN). At the close (and I think it's on "print media," also, that talking heads wonder about the mediocre market today in light of the great jobs report. They must take "movers and shakers," and the "big money" for fools. That was not a great jobs report. The top number (6.3%) came in better than expected but that was because almost a million folks dropped out of the labor force. The "smart money" can read the fine print.

Later, 10:51 a.m. central time: so, I guess this is what we have

• with 800,000 withdrawing from looking for jobs in April, unemployment natural ly plunges (if no one is looking for work, the unemployment rate is "zero")
• GDP for 1Q14 was 0.1%
• new home sales are at their lowest since July, 2013 

Original Post
 

Bloomberg is reporting:

Employers boosted payrolls in April by the most in two years and the jobless rate plunged to 6.3 percent as companies grew confident the U.S. economy is emerging from a first-quarter slowdown.

The 288,000 gain in employment was the biggest since January 2012 and followed a revised 203,000 increase the prior month, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a 218,000 advance. Unemployment dropped to the lowest level since September 2008. 

Bloomberg conveniently forgets that much of the 288,000 gain is simply playing catch-up from four months ago:

January 10, 2014: bad, bad report; worst since January, 2011 -- Americans leaving the work force in droves; applications drop 15,000 to 330,000 (weather not a factor). New jobs added were 76,000, worse in three years (weather a factor).

But it is what it is. Regardless of whether the numbers are credible, these are the numbers Wall Street works with.

This should bolster those not supporting an extension of benefits for the long-term unemployed. Unemployment plunges; there is a shortage of workers for the house-building industry (reported in The Wall Street Journal today).

If the numbers are credible and accurate, all these new folks entering / re-entering the job force will need to buy gasoline or diesel to get to work. Very few will be driving EVs. Go Big Oil!

How big an effect is technology having on the workforce? or is it government policy? Whatever: the share of working-age people in the labor force, decreased to 62.8 percent, matching the lowest level since 1978.