(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Will Trump Take Ford’s New China Trade Hint?

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(What's Left of) Our Economy Trump, automotive, border adjustment tax, China, Ford Motor Company, imports, Jobs, manufacturing, Mexico, NAFTA, North American Free Trade Agreement, offshoring, tariffs, trade agreements, trade balances, Trade Deficits

President Trump and his administration have certainly been active on the trade front in their first months in office, both in word and deed. The question remains whether they’ve been effective, and a breaking news story has just added powerfully to the doubters’ case.

The news has to do with Ford Motor Company’s announcement that it will scrap plans to relocate its remaining small car production from the United States to Mexico and supply the American market from an existing plant in Hermosillo, and instead import the vehicles from a retooled factory in China. The initial Ford production decision came under fire from Mr. Trump, and the company’s reaction – a rejiggered Mexico plan – looked chancy for two main reasons:

First, the president had declared his intention to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in large measure to stop such production offshoring. Second, the staunchly pro-trade Republican leaders of the GOP-controlled House of Representatives had been pushing a border adjustment tax proposal that would have imposed new costs on imports from anywhere.

Ford has now underscored why both opponents and supporters of a transformed, less import-friendly U.S. trade policy have been right in one of their major criticisms of Mr. Trump’s emerging strategy: A tight focus on bilateral trade issues and balances overlooks the ability of multinational companies to shift export-oriented production in order to evade country-specific tariffs or other trade curbs.

Not that business’ ability to hopscotch is unlimited. The massive level of sunk corporate costs in export-focused production in China, for example, won’t always be easy to walk away from. And not all countries offer comparable advantages to manufacturers. So given, for example, that China accounts for more than 43 percent of the American merchandise trade deficit, or that Mexico’s geography makes it such an unusually attractive base for selling to U.S. customers, focusing on individual-country or regional priorities often makes good sense.

It’s also legitimate in principle to base trade preferences on non-economic aims, like national security (e.g., rewarding allies or strengthening third world economies against the appeal of terrorism) – though Mr. Trump has expressed strong skepticism for this approach, notably in his Inaugural Address. And of course, prioritization is often the key to any successful public policy.

But what’s especially strange about the Trump trade strategy so far is the president’s indifference – at best – to the border adjustment tax idea. On top of undercutting corporate tariff arbitrage strategies by levying a tax on all imports (and encouraging exports), the measure would also bring in revenue needed to finance crucial domestic needs like infrastructure and healthcare reform without completely busting the federal budget. And its passage would by no means preclude addressing special trade priorities of all kinds with additional restrictions.

Ford’s new production announcement is just the latest in a series of comments from Corporate America that bear out one of President Trump’s central insights: that trade policy changes can decisively influence corporate sourcing decisions to America’s benefit. Now, however, he needs to recognize that his essential goal of using trade restrictions to lure valuable manufacturing production and jobs back to the United States requires policies with global scope. The half- (at best) measures he’s favored so far are just too easily gamed.

Making News: A New USAToday Op-Ed – & More!

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automation, climate change, Germany, Jobs, Lifezette.com, Making News, manufacturing, Paris climate accord, Trade, Trump, USAToday

I’m pleased to announce the publication of my latest op-ed article – a piece that appears in USAToday this morning on President Trump’s criticisms of Germany’s trade policies. Here’s the link.

Incidentally, the article ran as a rejoinder to an unsigned USAToday editorial on the subject that also was published today.  The paper’s editors have been using this “pro-con” format for many years, and I think they deserve great credit for seeking out viewspoints with which they disagree.

In addition, a June 1 post on Lifezette.com included my (skeptical) opinions about claims that Mr. Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris climate change accord will cede global leadership on the issue to China.

Moreover, a May 25 Lifezette article quoted me on a new study finding that trade and offshoring have been responsible for much more manufacturing job loss lately than automation.

And keep checking in with RealityChek for news of upcoming and recent media appearances and other developments.

 

 

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: May Sees First Manufacturing Jobs Drop in Six Months, but Wages Ride a Roller-Coaster

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Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment, inflation-adjusted wages, Jobs, manufacturing, recession, recovery, wages, {What's Left of) Our Economy

May’s monthly manufacturing employment drop of 1,000 ended the sector’s five-month string of sequential employment gains – its best such stretch since a near two year-long span between 2013 and 2015. Industry’s wages, though, roller-coastered for the second consecutive month, with May’s 0.45 percent pre-inflation drop (the worst) since last November’s 0.48 percent) following an upwardly revised jump of 0.76 percent in April (the best since October, 2008’s 0.81 percent, when the Great Recession was beginning).

Although manufacturing payrolls shrank in May, they still registered their biggest annual increase (63,000) since February, 2016 (69,000), and reversed the slight (2,000) decline between the previous two Mays. Yet these performances couldn’t change manufacturing’s status as a longer-term job-creation and wages laggard. Indeed, not only did its current dollar wages fall on month, but their annual increase was the slowest (1.86 percent) since July, 2014’s 1.57 percent. Further, the gap between the pre-inflation growth of industry’s paychecks and those of the private sector generally has been widening. March and April manufacturing employment revisions produced a net employment gain of 3,000.

Here’s my analysis of the latest monthly (May) manufacturing figures contained in this morning’s employment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

>May brought an end to manufacturing’s best (five-month) sequential job gains string since 2013-2015, as payrolls dipped 1,000 below April’s levels.

>At the same time, industry’s pre-inflation wages seemed to climb aboard a roller-coaster. May’s 0.45 decline was the biggest since November, 2008’s 0.48 percent decrease. Bt it followed an upwardly revised April 0.76 percent jump – the biggest since October, 2008’s 0.81 percent – which was aided by many companies that perceived the start of the last recession cutting labor costs by laying off mainly less experienced, lower-paid workers.

>Even with May’s monthly employment drop, manufacturing’s year-on-year job gain of 63,000 was still the largest such number since February, 2016’s 69,000. More impressive, between the previous two Mays, manufacturing lost 2,000 jobs on net.

>Nonetheless, over the longer term, manufacturing has continued to lag the private sector overall on the payroll and paycheck fronts.

>During the current economic recovery, which began in mid-2009, manufacturing employment has grown by only 5.73 percent. For the private sector as a whole during the expansion, it’s up by 13.74 percent.

>Since the late-2007 onset of the last recession, manufacturing’s performance is equally poor. From that time to the early 2010 troughs, manufacturing lost 2.293 million jobs and private sector payrolls shrank by 8.801 million.

>Since then, manufacturing has regained just 41.21 percent of those lost jobs (a total of 945,000). The private sector as a whole has boosted employment by 16.574 million.

>As a result, total private sector employment is now 6.72 percent higher than at the recession’s late-2007 onset, but manufacturing employment is still 9.81 percent lower.

>Similar trends have played out in terms of both pre-inflation and after-inflation wages.

>Manufacturing’s 0.45 percent May monthly current dollar wage decline was considerably worse than the private sector’s 0.15 percent improvement.

>Year-on-year, manufacturing pre-inflation wages rose only 1.85 percent – not only much more sluggishly than the 3.46 percent increase between May, 2015 and May, 2016, but the weakest such rate since July, 2014 (1.57 percent).

>On a pre-inflation basis, manufacturing’s wage increases during the current economic recovery still trail those of the private sector, and the gap is widening. As of May, private sector pre-inflation wages were up by 18.43 percent during the expansion, versus a 14.99 percent increase for manufacturing wages. As a result, private sector wages had risen by 22.95 percent more over these nearly eight years than manufacturing wages.

>As of last May, however, recovery-era private sector wages were up by 15.58 percent, and manufacturing wages were up by 12.90 percent – resulting in a smaller, 20.76 percent, difference between the two.

>Adjusting wages for inflation produces a somewhat brighter picture for manufacturing. The latest figures are from April, and the sector’s after-inflation pay has been revised up from a 0.46 percent monthly gain to 0.55 percent – the best since August, 2015′ 0.66 percent. Real private sector wages in May, by contrast, has been revised down from a 0.09 monthly gain to flat.

>Year-on-year, real manufacturing wages have outperformed their private sector counterpart, too, advancing by 0.55 percent (much less, though, than the previous year’s 1.79 percent) versus 0.28 percent for the overall private sector (also much less than the previous annual increase of 1.42 percent).

>But during the current recovery, real manufacturing wages are up only 1.59 percent in toto. That’s less than half as fast as the overall private sector increase of 3.98 percent.

>Manufacturing’s March monthly job gain, which had been revised up from 11,000 to 13,000, has now been downgraded back down to 11,000. April’s previously reported 6,000 sequential employment increase has been revised up – also to 11,000.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Has Subsidized Private Sector Hiring Peaked (Relatively Speaking)?

Tags

CNN.com, Employment, healthcare services, Jobs, Labor Department, non-farm jobs, private sector, real private sector, recession, recovery, subsidized private sector, The New York Times, {What's Left of) Our Economy

The Snob’s Manual tells us (often correctly) that you know when the stock market’s peaked when the retail investor rushes in, and that you know when a fad is passe when the mainstream media report it. Could the same maxim be on target for economic trends, like the outsized role played by the U.S. subsidized private sector in job creation during the recovery? I’m not sure yet, but the last few sets of monthly American employment data (including last Friday’s April figures) are certainly food for thought.

As RealityChek regulars know, I’ve been spotlighting this trend since well before RealityChek was born. And it was great to see the theme picked up last month by a major reporter who covers the healthcare sector (the core of that part of the economy dubbed private sector but in fact heavily dependent on government spending). Since then, healthcare hiring’s unusual recent robustness has been covered by The New York Times and CNN.com.

Here’s the rub: So far this year, subsidized private sector job creation has become less important in the overall employment picture, not more. The March and April statistics are still preliminary, but since January, the pace of subsidized private sector hiring has ranged between 7.87 percent of total monthly job creation (in January) to 29.31 percent (in February). The April figure was right in the middle: 19.43 percent.

The subsidized private sector’s waning momentum – at least relatively speaking – comes through more clearly when the first four months of this year are compared with their last few counterparts. From January through April, 2017, subsidized private sector net new job creation (which also includes social assistance agencies and the for-profit education sector) represented 18.43 percent of the non-farm total (the Labor Department’s definition of the American employment universe.

That share is considerably higher than the figure for the first two months of 2013 and 2014 (14.56 percent and 12.53 percent, respectively). But it’s also considerably lower than the 27.68 percent for 2015 and the 23.87 percent for the same time span in 2016. In addition, these numbers show that the subsidized private sector’s importance has not fallen for two straight years.

That’s not to say that the subsidized private sector isn’t still punching above its weight. Its 19.43 percent of net new job creation was still greater than its share of total employment on a standstill basis (15.75 percent). It’s also still higher than the share at the mid-2009 onset of the current recovery (14.97 percent). And it’s much higher than the share at the start of the last recession at the end of 2007 (13.22 percent). But there’s no doubt that this year it’s not punching quite as hard.

The flip side of the equation tells a similar, but not identical, story. The “real private sector” – where job creation is determined largely by market forces, not government decisions – stood at 68.95 percent of total non-farm jobs last month. That’s actually a little higher than its share at the start of the recovery (67.80 percent). But it’s also still a little lower than its share at the start of the last recession – more than nine years ago (70.62 percent).

There’s still a long way to go in figuring out whether these early 2017 results will hold up even through the end of this year, much less whether they represent hiring that’s peaking (again, relatively speaking) in the subsidized private sector. And of course a huge question mark is hanging over this entire chunk of the economy in the form of the healthcare debate. But the real implications are unchanged. Although subsidized private sector jobs serve many valuable purposes, the more the economy leans on them to generate employment and incomes, the less dynamic and productive the nation is bound to be.

Glad I Didn’t Say That! No More Excuses for the H1B Visa Tech Immigrants Program

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Ananya Bhattacharya, Glad I Didn't Say That!, H1B, immigrants, immigratiion, innovation, Jobs, Qz.com, tech workers

“Trump’s crackdown on H-1B visas could prevent the next US unicorn born of Indian immigrants”

–Ananya Bhattacharya, Quartz India, February 5, 2017

Share of Indian engineering graduates capable of writing “the correct logic for a program, a minimum requirement for any programming job”: 4.77%

–Ananya Bhattacharya, Quartz India, April 20, 2017

(Sources: “Trump’s crackdown on H-1B visas could prevent the next US unicorn born of Indian immigrants,” by Ananya Bhattacharya, Quartz India, Februay 5, 2017, https://qz.com/900729/trumps-crackdown-on-h-1b-visas-could-prevent-the-next-us-unicorn-born-of-indian-immigrants/ and “Fewer than 5% of engineers trained in India are cut out for high-skill programming jobs,” by Ananya Bhattacharya, Ibid., April 20, 2017, https://qz.com/964843/less-than-5-of-india-engineers-are-cut-out-for-high-skill-programming-jobs/)

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Best Stretch of U.S. Manufacturing Jobs Gains in Nearly Two Years Continues but Wages Outlook is Cloudy

Tags

Bureau of Labor Statistics, inflation-adjusted wages, Jobs, manufacturing, manufacturing jobs, private sector, recession, recovery, wages, {What's Left of) Our Economy

U.S. monthly manufacturing employment grew for the fifth straight month in April for its best such performance since a nearly two-year stretch of sequential gains from 2013 to 2015. As a result, the sector continued to edge out of its latest jobs recession. But the monthly pace of employment increases (6,000 in April) fell for the third consecutive month.

In addition, manufacturing’s share of total non-farm payrolls fell to its latest record low – 8.46 percent. Revisions were negative by 2,000. Year-on-year manufacturing employment growth sped up again in April (to 40,000) – its best annual improvement since February, 2016 (69,000).

Pre-inflation manufacturing wages in April recorded their best monthly improvement (0.68 percent) since last October (0.73 percent). And for the first time in four months, these manufacturing wage advances exceeded that of the overall private sector (0.27 percent.) Year-on-year current dollar manufacturing wage momentum seemed to stall out, registering its slowest such advance (2.71 percent) since last August (2.68 percent). But the strong monthly gain resulted in industry’s annual wages gains resuming their recent pattern of topping those of the private sector (2.55 percent).

Manufacturing remained a recovery-era jobs and wages laggard, but the gap in pay at least narrowed between March and April from a 22.81 percent difference between the recovery-era increase in cumulative private sector and manufacturing wage increases to an 18.61 percent difference. Yet the latest (March) real wage data kept showing manufacturing pay falling further behind.

Here’s my analysis of the latest monthly (April) manufacturing figures contained in this morning’s employment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

>Manufacturing employment grew sequentially for the fifth straight month in April, enabling the sector to keep edging out of its latest jobs recession and record its best stretch of monthly employment improvement since the August, 2013 to July, 2015 period.

>But April’s monthly gain of 6,000 represented the third straight month of slowing advances, and helped drag industry’s share of total nonfarm payrolls (the government’s definition of the U.S. employment universe) to it’s latest all-time now – 8.46 percent.

>So did slightly negative revisions, with March’s originally reported 11,000 monthly jobs gain revised up to 13,000, but February’s already downgraded 26,000 increase reduced again to 22,000.

>On the brighter side, the April figures were good enough to produce a year-on-year manufacturing jobs improvement of 40,000 – the best such advance since February, 2016’s 69,000. The April annual advance also bettered that between the previous Aprils (35,000).

>Manufacturing wages presented a mixed picture, too. In April, industry pay before inflation enjoyed its best monthly increase (0.68 percent) since last October (0.73 percent). The spurt was especially welcome, since the sector’s monthly March wage change was revised down from 0.04 percent to zero.

>Moreover, for the first time since December, such manufacturing wage rises resumed outpacing increases in the private sector overall (0.27 percent).

>The year-on-year April manufacturing pre-inflation wage increase of 2.71 percent, however, was its slowest since last August (2.68 percent). It was lower, too, than that of April, 2015 to April, 2016 (2.99 percent). At the same time, the new April result also bested that of the private sector overall (2.55 percent), continuing a streak of out-performance that began in March, 2016.

>On a pre-inflation basis, manufacturing’s wage increases during the current economic recovery still trail those of the private sector, but the gap narrowed between March and April. The revised figures for the former month show that private sector wages had risen by 17.98 percent since the current expansio began in mid-2009 – 22.81 percent faster than manufacturing wages (14.64 percent).

>As of April, however, private sector wages during the recovery were up by 18.29 percent while manufacturing wages had improved by 15.42 percent – a gap of only 18.61 percent. ,since the expansion began in mid-2009.

>Yet when wages are adjusting for inflation, manufacturing’s performance looks worse than ever. The latest figures only cover March, but show that industry’s 0.37 percent price-adjusted monthly pay improvement fell short of the overall private sector’s 0.47 percent advance.

>Year-on-year, manufacturing wages were up only 0.19 percent – also worse than the (also meager) 0.28 percent rise for the private sector.

>As a result, real manufacturing wages have increased by only 0.93 percent during the current, nearly eight-year old economic recovery. Overall private sector wages are up 3.97 percent.

>In April, manufacturing retained its status as an employment laggard, too. During the recovery, its payrolls are up by only 5.71 percent. The total for employment in the private sector as a whole? 14.09 percent.

>Since the late-2007 onset of the last recession, manufacturing’s performance is equally poor. From that time to the early 2010 troughs, manufacturing lost 2.293 million jobs and private sector payrolls shrank by 8.801 million.

>Since then, manufacturing has regained just 41.43 percent of those lost jobs (a total of 943,000). The private sector as a whole has boosted employment by 16.436 million.

>As a result, total private sector employment is now 6.62 percent higher than at the recession’s late-2007 onset, but manufacturing employment is still 9.82 percent lower.

Following Up: Healthcare’s Outsized Job Creation Reported in The New York Times

Tags

Affordable Care Act, Chad Terhune, Employment, Following Up, healthcare, healthcare services, Jobs, Obamacare, private sector, productivity, subsidized private sector, The New York Times, Trump

Well this is pretty cool! A new New York Times op-ed piece has spotlighted a trend that RealityChek has long covered: how strongly the creation of healthcare services employment has dominated recent American job creation, and how this trend has been especially noteworthy since the financial crisis and Great Recession broke out nearly a decade ago.

At the same time, author Chad Terhune, who reports on the healthcare industry for Kaiser Health News and the California Health Care Foundation, explains a major dilemma being created by outsized healthcare job creation for the Trump administration: Because so many of the new jobs in the sector have been driven by the build-out of Obamacare, the president’ promise to abolish this vast new structure could endanger his broader promise to jump-start feeble U.S. economic growth and stagnating incomes.

Even worse, according to Terhune, any effort to make healthcare more affordable, or even keep it at its current affordability levels, will significantly weaken the healthcare job-creation engine.

As the author sees it, healthcare hiring got a major boost “as coverage expanded in 2014 under the [Affordable Care Act] and new federal dollars flowed in. The law gave hospitals, universities and companies even more reason to invest in new facilities and staff. Training programs sprang up to fill the growing job pool. Cities welcomed the development — and the revenue.”

Sharpening the healthcare jobs conundrum faced by the president: “rising health spending has been good for some economically distressed parts of the country, many of which voted for Mr. Trump last year.” And Terhune cites specific examples from West Virginia to Pennsylvania to Ohio and Missouri.

Just as important, the author convincingly shows that American healthcare’s success in creating employment – which clearly predates Obamacare’s passage – also largely explains its inefficiency. In Terhune’s words, because of the system’s

“redundancy, inefficiency and a growing number of jobs far removed from patient care….[l]abor accounts for more than half of the $3.4 trillion spent on American health care, and medical professionals like health aides and nurse practitioners are in high demand. But the sheer complexity of the system has also spawned jobs for legions of data-entry clerks, revenue-cycle analysts and medical billing coders who must decipher arcane rules to mine money from human ills.”

And although Terhune doesn’t make the point explicitly, this labor-intensivity means that the sector of the economy fueling so much of its output and hiring is pathetically unproductive. In other words, the more outsized growth and employment healthcare creates, the less able the entire economy will be to raise living standards on a sustainable basis.

Moreover, one big reason for this low productivity is a feature of the healthcare system – both under Obamacare and before it – not mentioned by Terhune, either, but that’s vital to recognize: As I’ve observed, although this gigantic industry is officially (and no doubt popularly) considered a part of the private sector, its scale owes largely to subsidies from the public sector, which is renowned for low productivity.

As always, RealityChek readers – and others – need to understand that placing healthcare (and similar industries, like the for-profit educational system and social assistance agencies) outside the “real private sector” is not the same as questioning its fundamental value. After all, no truly civilized society would ever reduce public policy to a quest for productivity to the exclusion of all other goals, whether economic or non-economic. Moreover, as some readers have alertly pointed out, the steady aging of the American population is bound to mean continued healthcare sector growth.

But Terhune’s article is a badly needed reminder that the economy’s heavy reliance on the current healthcare system’s employment power has major downsides. As its title indicates, it’s a “costly addiction,” and its price is bound to rise without a major overhaul of some kind.

Those Stubborn Facts: No American Exceptionalism in Employment

Tags

Employment, Jobs, OECD, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

U.S. employment rate*, 4Q 2016: 69.5%

Rank among members of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD): 15

OECD average: 67.2%

*share of working-age population holding jobs

(Source: “Short-Term Labour Market Statistics,” Labour Force Statisics, OECD.Stat, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, http://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=STLABOUR)

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Murky Jobs Signals from the New JOLTS Report

Tags

BLS, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Federal Reserve, healthcare services, Janet Yellen, Jobs, JOLTS, recovery, subsidized private sector, turnover, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Economy-watchers just got another reminder today of how difficult it remains to figure out how healthy the current recovery is – from the data on employment turnover released by the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The biggest surprise they delivered concerned the numbers of job openings reported (preliminarily) for February in the economy’s subsidized private sector.

Whereas the last few months of BLS data indicate that hiring in industries like healthcare services (which are heavily dependent on government support) hasn’t been quite so outsized as over the last decade, the new job turnover numbers (commonly known by their acronym JOLTS) suggest that they’re still punching above their weight.

If you think – as you should – that the real private sector should flat-out dominate job creation because it’s the economy’s leader in productivity and innovation, that’s not such a great development.

For the first three months of this year, the subsidized private sector accounted for 18.57 percent of the 533,000 total net new jobs America created. During the first three months of last year, this figure was 21.26 percent. These numbers will be revised several times more, but so far they signal that subsidized private sector jobs gains have lost some of their relative steam. (For more on the robust hiring in these industries during the current recovery, see this recent post.)

But the job turnover data appear to be sending the opposite message. Here we only have statistics going through February, and they’ll be revised down the road, too. But for the first two months of this year, 19.38 percent of the 11.368 million total job openings have come in the subsidized private sector. For the first two months of 2016, that figure was only 17.76 percent. In fact, the 1.138 million job openings estimated in the subsidized in February were the highest monthly total ever in absolute terms. (This data series started in 2000.)

To be sure, the subsidized private sector’s share of total job openings this year is a little below the levels that have held for most of the recovery. (See this post for more detail.) But its year-on-year rise is tough to square with the relative decline in actual job creation.

Another noteworthy result found in today’s job turnover report: The decline of retail job opportunities comes through plain as day. It’s not that the sector, whose bricks-and-mortars segment is under such tremendous pressure from on-line shopping, isn’t reporting any job openings at all. In fact, at 541,000 in February (on a preliminary basis), they were on the low end but still respectable by the standards of the last few years.

Look at the year-on-yer change, however, and you can see the retail employment problem. Reported job openings during January and February combined were down nearly ten percent. Those kinds of drops haven’t been seen since early in the recovery, in 2010.

These employment-related developments stand in especially stark contrast to the Federal Reserve’s apparent conclusion that the economy is just about fully recovered, and that the central bank’s new priority is sustaining “what we have achieved,” as chair Janet Yellen declared yesterday. This approach of course entails continuing to raise interest rates gradually, and reducing the immense amount of bonds the Fed bought as part of its stimulus program. Here’s hoping that the Fed’s confidence more accurately reflects the true state of the economy than these latest figures.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Manufacturing Exits Jobs Recession; Payrolls Resilient but Wages Dreary

Tags

inflation-adjusted wages, Jobs, manufacturing, non-farm payrolls, recession, recovery, wages, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Although U.S. monthly manufacturing jobs growth slowed in March to 11,000 from a solid February figure that was revised slightly downward (to 26,000), net positive revisions helped pull industry out of its latest employment recession. Manufacturing payrolls have now increased on net (by 5,000) since January, 2016. March’s year-on-year manufacturing jobs improvement (37,000) was also the best such figure since last February’s 69,000. Manufacturing’s March monthly employment slowdown mirrored that of the rest of the economy, but its revisions were much better. As a result, manufacturing’s share of total non-farm employment inched up from its latest all-time low in February (8.49 percent) to 8.50 percent.

Less impressive was manufacturing’s March sequential wage growth (0.04 percent), which trailed the overall private sector improvement (0.19 percent) for the third straight month. These results also pushed manufacturing’s yearly current dollar wage growth (2.53 percent) below that of the private sector (2.67 percent) for the first time since last February (2.32 percent vs 2.38 percent). Consequently, the wage-increase gap between the overall private sector and the manufacturing sector during the recovery widened from 1.23:1 to 1.24:1. Manufacturing’s recovery-era job laggard status remained intact, too, in March, as its payrolls have increased by only 5.68 percent since mid-2009, versus the 13.92 percent rise for the overall private sector.

Here’s my analysis of the latest monthly (March) manufacturing figures contained in this morning’s employment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

>The job growth slowdown that struck the entire U.S. economy in March undercut manufacturing’s performance, too. But the latest 11,000 sequential gain, coupled with February’s solid but downwardly revised 26,000 and positive revisions helped the sector emerge from its latest employment recession.

>American manufacturing payrolls are now 5,000 higher than in January, 2016.

>The new figures also pushed March’s year-on-year manufacturing jobs gains to 37,000 – the best such improvement since last February’s 69,000. Even better, the new March annual rise also beat that between the previous Marches (35,000).

>Although the February manufacturing jobs gain was revised down slightly from 28,000, January’s figure rise was upgraded from 11,000 to 12,000, and December’s increase is now judged to be 18,000, not 11,000.

>Manufacturing’s share of total non-farm employment came in at a meager 8.50 percent in March. But that level at least beat February’s 8.49 percent – which represented an all-time low.

>Manufacturing wages performed less impressively in March than manufacturing employment. On a monthly basis, the second straight 0.04 rise in pre-inflation hourly pay in the sector trailed the overall private sector rise (0.19 percent) for the third straight month.

>More troubling, manufacturing’s March year-on-year pre-inflation wage growth (2.53 percent) trailed the overall private sector result (2.67 percent) for the first time since last February (when annual current dollar manufacturing wages increased by 2.32 percent and overall private sector wages advanced by 2.38 percent.

>The new manufacturing increase did beat March 2015-16’s 2.47 percent.

>Yet thanks to manufacturing’s recent relative wage weakness, it’s an even greater recovery-era laggard measured by its rate of wage increases than in February. As of that month, current dollar private sector wages had risen by 23 percent faster than hourly manufacturing pay since the expansion’s June, 2009 onset.

>In March, the gap had grown to 24 percent. Manufacturing wages had risen by 14.55 percent during that period, whereas private sector wages in toto were up 18.07 percent.

>Moreover, the latest available (February) data show that manufacturing’s wage lag is even worse – and also widening – in inflation-adjusted terms.

>February real manufacturing wages dipped month-on-month by 0.09 percent, while after-inflation private sector pay rose by 0.09 percent.

>Including these results, after-inflation manufacturing wages have risen by only 0.56 percent during the near-decade-long recovery. Real overall private sector wages have advanced by 3.49 percent. These results brought the private sector manufacturing-pr

>Adjusting for inflation, manufacturing’s wage performance looks much worse. The latest figures only cover January, but they show that real hourly pay in the sector is up only 0.65 percent since the recovery began in mid-2009 – more than seven years ago.

>As a result, the March real wage growth gap between the two 6.32:1 – considerably higher than February’s 5.22:1.

>The recovery-era story of manufacturing as a major job-creation laggard remained intact in March, too.

>Since America’s current expansion began, industry’s payrolls are up by a mere 5.68 percent. Employment in the private sector as a whole has risen by 13.92 percent during this period.

>The same trends can be seen since the last recession began, at the end of 2007. From that employment peak to the early 2010 troughs, manufacturing lost 2.293 million jobs and private sector payrolls shrank by 8.801 million.

>Since then, manufacturing has regained only 40.87 percent of those lost jobs (a total of 939,000). the private sector as a whole, by has boosted employment by 16.283 million.

>This means that total private sector employment is now 6.47 percent higher than at the recession’s late-2007 onset, but manufacturing employment is still 9.85 percent lower.