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Last month's Household Survey mysteriously showed outsized gains. Given current conditions, they made no sense. They reflect one or two phenomena, believes Rasmus.
Employers are either replacing full-time workers with part-time/temp ones, or they're hiring for the latter two categories because economic prospects aren't encouraging.
In calculating its headline U-3 unemployment rate, part-time workers count the same as full-time ones. Hiring them in place of permanent employees reflects "very weak labor market" conditions.
Fictitious new business formations also help explain inordinately high part-time hiring. Estimates are suspect. Media scoundrels report them like gospel.
Something is very wrong with BLS reports. Problems are more extensive than one month's numbers. When divergence is so great between the Establishment (Payroll) and Household (Population) Surveys, something indeed is amiss.
As or more important is the extraordinary seasonal divergence. One year's aberration wouldn't matter. Three consecutive years shows something else entirely. "Something is wrong."
America's economy is sick. Labor market reality reflects it. It's not "rapidly mending." Over 23 million remain jobless. Trillions of dollar of tax cuts, banker bailouts, corporate subsidies, and other handouts did nothing to mend things.
Nor did QE ad infinitum. The most radical ever monetary/fiscal experiment failed.
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