CNBC Finds Good News in The Latest Jobs (Employment) Numbers

CNBC was able to find something good in the most recent jobs report -- the one that showed the economy gained 430,000 new jobs in May -- all but 40,000 of them temporary government census jobs, that will be gone at the end of June.

The good news: according to CNBC, because more people were not hired, those still holding jobs were able to work longer hours: 34.2 hours/week vs 34.1 hours/week.

I am unable to make this stuff up.

Three points:

• Point 1: 34.2 vs 34.1 cannot possibly be statistically significant nor reproducible.
• Point 2: I assume both 34.2 and 34.1 were rounded, and therefor the difference may be even less than one-tenth of an hour (6 minutes).
• Point 3: Does anyone really believe that by employers having folks work up to six minutes longer per week means they can postpone hiring more people?

CNBC does note that the likely reason employers are not hiring is because of the tremendous health care cost they will incur with the new Federal health care program.

Update: the unemployment picture just got a bit bleaker with the firing/resignation/retirement of a prominent 89-year-old reporter loved by all.