Unemployment rate - only part of the story

Most of you are familiar with the song and dance routine that surrounds the jobs report when it is released each month. No matter how much of a job deficit American workers face, George Bush claims another month of job growth.

One of the problems is that a key group of statistics - the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) - is overlooked by just about everybody involved in spinning the employment report. JOLTS provides additional information to help qualify the raw numbers from the employment report.

JOLTS gives statistics like the number of hires as a percentage of total employment and the number of separations as a percentage of total employment. Lately the number of separations is down. This means people aren't leaving their jobs - whether in pursuit of better opportunities or through a layoff.

What the current JOLTS report tells us is that hiring appears to be relatively steady with a slight trend down this year. Separations are also down. When fewer people leave their jobs and hiring basically holds steady, the workforce numbers grow, but it isn't necessarily a level of growth that warrants all the cheerleading from the Bush administration.

You can find the JOLTS report at this link.