Jobs Report - Nov24

Macro
Labor
FRED
Some perspectives on the labor market
Author

Mike Aguilar

Published

December 8, 2024

I usually download data from FRED into R / Excel to conduct my analysis. For this post I’m going to rely exclusively on FRED graphics and leveraging embed codes. [Once you create your graphic on FRED, click the Share Links icon in the bottom left. Then copy the embed copy and paste into your web editor.]

Household Survey

Unemployment Rate

Headline unemployment rate Nov`24 = 4.2%

UR seems to have reason for all the wrong reasons: more unemployed, fewer employed, more people not in the labor force

UR relatively steady even when broaden definition of labor underutilization

Participation

Prime Age LFPR stopped its recent decline, which is goods news. Other segments of the labor force (e.g. older) struggle to return to work

Part time employment for economic reasons continues to slide a bit.

Prime Age female employment falling faster than male employment

Unemployment Reason

Seems like job losers not on layoff (i.e. fired) ticked up

Duration of Unemployment

People are unemployed longer

Newly unemployed up the most. Long term unemployed steady.

Multiple Jobs

Side hustles still near record

Establishment Survey

Headline employment m/m delta Nov`24 = 227K

Industry

Government & Services see growth

Trade, Transportation, and Utilities lead job growth

Education and Health faster growers

Temp Help hinting at overall weakness

Employment (y/y % delta) from the household survey turned negative for the first time 2021

Hours Worked

Drop in Utilities Hours

OT stable

Aggregate Hours Worked continues to rise. (Avg hrs per worker times # of workers)

Utilities hours fall dramatically

Compensation

In this context payrolls are $/Hr/Person * #Hrs/Person * #People

Avg Hrly Earnings relatively steady