The Labor Department has released its statistics for March, and it shows unemployment rate fell by 0.2% in March (from 4.7% in February to 4.5% in March). But don't pop the cork on the champagne and start celebrating. That drop was in spite of a very weak job creation -- with only 98,000 new jobs being created in March. That's the second lowest number of jobs created in the last 13 months (with only May 2016 being lower at 38,000). And the size of the civilian workforce increased by 145,000 (47,000 more than the number of jobs created).
How is that possible? How can the size of the workforce grow faster than the number of jobs created, and yet the unemployment rate decrease? There's only one explanation -- a sizable number of workers have given up trying to find work, and are no longer being counted as unemployed (because they didn't look for work in the last 4 weeks). This is not the mark of a healthy economy.
Is the weak growth in jobs a one-month aberration (like last May), or is it the beginning of a trend that shows the economy is in trouble? That can only be answered by next months job creation numbers. If the job creation is also weak for April, then we have a problem. And I think that will be because the business community has looked at the first weeks of the Trump administration, and don't like what they see. They are no longer confident that Trump (and the GOP Congress) can do what is necessary to boost the economy.
Here are the relevant statistics for March:
SIZE OF THE CIVILIAN WORKFORCE:
160,201,000
OFFICIAL NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED WORKERS:
7,202,000
OFFICIAL UNEMPLOYMENT RATE:
4.5%
DEMOGRAPHIC BREAKDOWN OF OFFICIAL UNEMPLOYMENT RATES:
Adult men...............4.3%
Adult women...............4.0%
Teens (16-19)...............13.7%
Whites...............3.9%
Blacks...............8.0%
Hispanics...............5.1%
Asians...............3.3%
No HS diploma...............6.8%
HS graduates...............4.9%
Some college...............3.7%
Bachelor's degree or more...............2.5%
MARGINALLY-ATTACHED WORKERS (no longer counted as unemployed):
1,595,000
MORE REALISTIC NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED WORKERS (official + marginally-attached):
8,797,000
MORE REALISTIC UNEMPLOYMENT RATE:
5.5%
