by Michael Snyder, The Economic Collapse Blog:
They are taking gaslighting to a whole new level in 2024. The raw, unadjusted figures that the Bureau of Labor Statistics just released say that the U.S. economy lost more than 2.6 million jobs last month. That is what actually happened. But after they massaged that number with all sorts of “assumptions” and “adjustments”, it magically turned into a gain of 353,000 jobs. Amazingly, even Fox Business is attempting to claim that this adjusted number shows “the resilience of the labor market”…
TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/
U.S. job growth unexpectedly surged in January, underscoring the resilience of the labor market even in the face of high interest rates and stubborn inflation.
Employers added 353,000 jobs in January, the Labor Department said in its monthly payroll report released Friday, easily topping the 180,000 gain forecast by Refinitiv economists. The unemployment rate held steady at 3.7%, against expectations for a slight increase.
Give me a break.
I am so disappointed in Fox Business.
And they actually interviewed an “expert” that was so excited about “how widespread the hiring has become”…
“So much for the cooling labor market,” said Robert Frick, corporate economist with Navy Federal Credit Union. “The best part of the blockbuster number is how widespread the hiring has become. … This shows a growing labor market reflecting a broad-based economic expansion, and not just recoveries in a few sectors such as health care and government.”
Seriously?
With all of the layoffs that are taking place all around us, you are going to try to convince us that what we can see with our own eyes is not real?
Thankfully, there are other news outlets that are telling the truth.
For example, the following comes from an excellent piece posted by Zero Hedge entitled “Inside The Most Ridiculous Jobs Report In Recent History”…
And speaking of seasonal adjustments, the January print was all seasonals, because while the seasonally adjusted payrolls was up 353K, the unadjusted was down 2.635 million, a 3 million jobs delta.
In other words, just a 10% error rate in the seasonal adjustment (roughly where it falls) would wipe out the entire gain and make January increase a decline.
The U.S. economy loses a certain number of seasonal jobs every January.
I get that.
But to magically turn a loss of more than 2.6 million jobs into a gain of 353,000 jobs is just ludicrous.
Right now, we are witnessing mass layoffs all over America, and most of the positions that are being eliminated are not seasonal positions.
According to Intellizence.com, last month the following companies announced that they would by laying off at least 1,000 workers…
-Microsoft
-Citigroup
-eBay
-Corning Inc.
-Macy’s
-Wayfair
-Bosch
-Unity Software
-GDI Integrated Facilities Services
-Xerox
Of course those layoffs represent just a small portion of the enormous tsunami of layoffs that is now happening from coast to coast.
As I discussed last week, Challenger, Gray & Christmas just issued a report which says that the number of layoffs in the U.S. increased by 136 percent from December to January.
At this point, everyone should just stop paying attention to the absurd numbers that the government puts out that have been radically adjusted to make certain politicians look good.
No, the U.S. economy did not add 353,000 jobs last month.
Instead, it actually lost 2.635 million jobs.
In the days ahead, I am sure that I am going to have to explain this again and again.
Because there are a whole lot of people out there that believe whatever their televisions tell them to believe.
If you are one of the workers that has been laid off in recent weeks, I am sorry for your loss.
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