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Jan 10, 2025 | 
forbes.com | Harry J. Holzer
The Labor Department released its final jobs report for 2024 this morning. It showed another strong month of job growth, with 256,000 new payroll jobs reported. Payroll growth was concentrated in particular sectors, like health care (+46,000), leisure and hospitality (+43,000) and government, (33,000), as it has been for months - while it also bounced back in retail trade (43,000). Wages grew by 3.4% on an annualized basis in December and 3.9% over the entire year.
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Dec 6, 2024 | 
forbes.com | Harry J. Holzer
The Bureau of Labor Statistics released its jobs report for November this morning. The numbers are strong, dispelling any concerns of a major labor market slowdown - though the pattern over the past several months is very uneven. Payroll growth bounced back strongly from a very weak report in October, rising to 227,000 (up from 36,000).
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Nov 23, 2024 | 
yahoo.com | Harry J. Holzer
In the 2024 elections, a wide swath of Americans — especially young non-college educated men, Blacks and Latinos — swung towards Donald Trump and the Republicans. Democrats know they must change course if they don’t want to become a permanent minority party that appeals only to those with college or higher degrees.
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Nov 1, 2024 | 
forbes.com | Harry J. Holzer
Last month, we were impressed with a very strong jobs report for September that called into question whether or not the labor market was really declining, as seemed to be the case in the summer. Today’s jobs report for October suggests that the earlier view of a modest decline was correct, and that last month was the fluke. Payrolls rose by only 12,000 last month.
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Oct 17, 2024 | 
post-gazette.com | Harry J. Holzer
Voters are understandably perplexed by Kamala Harris’ economic agenda, on which her campaign has offered little substance and little more than a string of vague promises. But when you follow the policy breadcrumbs, her intentions become clear: She plans to continue the same economic policies we’ve seen over the last four years. The weirdest thing is how similar many of her proposals are to Donald Trump’s.
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Oct 4, 2024 | 
forbes.com | Harry J. Holzer
The jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics for September was considerably stronger than expected. Economists had been predicting payroll growth of 140-150,000 jobs; instead, payrolls rose by 254,000. The estimates for July and August were revised up substantially; the average for the last 3 months is now 185,000, which is considerably higher than earlier estimates. The strongest growth was in eating and drinking places, where employment rose by a very robust 69,000 jobs.
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Aug 2, 2024 | 
forbes.com | Harry J. Holzer
A number of indicators have suggested that the labor market has been cooling over the previous few months. But the latest jobs report from the Dept. of Labor for JulyBureau of Labor StatisticsEmployment Situation Summarysuggests that a real downturn might be coming, and that the Fed should act to cut interest rates ASAP. On the household side, the unemployment rate rose to 4.3%. While labor force participation grew modestly, the employment rate of the population declined a bit (to 60 percent).
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Jul 5, 2024 | 
forbes.com | Harry J. Holzer
Employers added 206,000 payroll jobs in June, according to the new jobs report just released by the US Department of Labor. That was just slightly above the consensus economist forecast of 190,000. But, on many other measures, we see a labor market that is gradually cooling. Perhaps the most important numbers in the report were the downward revisions to estimates of job growth in April and May. Payroll growth was revised down from 165,000 to 108,000 in April, and from 272,000 to 218,000 in May.
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Jun 7, 2024 | 
forbes.com | Harry J. Holzer
The new employment numbers released this morning by the Labor Department show a labor market with surprising strength - probably somewhat more than the Federal Reserve wants to see. Payrolls grew by 272,000 - well above the consensus economist expectation of about 180,000, and well above last month’s level (165,000). Strong payroll growth was observed across most sectors of the economy - led by health care (as usual), government, leisure and hospitality and professional services.
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May 3, 2024 | 
forbes.com | Harry J. Holzer
After 3 months of torrid growth in the first quarter of 2024, the job market finally cooled a bit in April:Bureau of Labor StatisticsEmployment Situation SummaryPayroll growth rose by 175,000. This is still a very positive number for being at this stage of the business cycle. But it is below last month’s huge gain (revised up to 315,000), and below economists’ expectations (about 240,000). With these new numbers, gains over the past 3 months now average 242,000, which is similar to 2023.
