(What’s Left of) Our Economy: A Turning Point for U.S. Job Quality?

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Employment, healthcare services, Jobs, private sector, public sector, recession, recovery, subsidized private sector, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Although the numbers are still preliminary, the release earlier this month of the January U.S. jobs report provides an unusually good reason to check in on one of RealityChek‘s favorite sets of statistics – the ones that permit calculating the importance of what I call the subsidized private sector (those parts of the economy, notably healthcare services, that are typically considered part of the private sector, but that rely heavily on government spending for its performance in employment and other areas) in the American jobs creation picture.

This distinction matters because most Americans (rightly) believe that private sector employment and its strength or weakness is a much better measure of the economy’s overall health than public sector employment – which largely reflects the decisions of politicians. So if the private sector is being over-counted – which is clear from the failure of most analysts to draw this distinction – that’s big news, and this over-count has been a major feature of most discussions of the current economic recovery.

This latest data bring the story up to the first month of the new year. They include a second (though still preliminary) look at the December numbers (and consequently the full-year 2017 numbers). And they incorporate some revisions going back to the early part of last year. The bottom line is similar to that of RealityChek‘s last update: after surging during the middle part of the recovery, subsidized private sector job creation slowed markedly during the first year of the Trump administration. But another significant development comes through loud and clear, too: During Year One of Trump, growth in payrolls in the public sector proper has ground to a near halt.

First, the new subsidized private sector number, expressed as a share of total job creation for the last few years:

2013: 11.34 percent

2014: 15.97 percent

2015: 23.67 percent

2016: 24.77 percent

2017: 21.49 percent

For good measure, the figure for last month (which will be revised at least twice more): 19.00 percent.

On a standstill basis, here’s how the subsidized private sector’s share of total employment has looked looks at the onset of the last recession (at the end of 2007), at the start of the current recovery, and at the end last year:

December, 2007: 13.22 percent

June, 2009: 14.97 percent

December, 2017: 15.85 percent

For comparison’s sake, in December, 2016, the subsidized private sector’s share of total payrolls was 15.76 percent.

And this is where the dramatic slowdown in government hiring comes in. Here’s how the actual number of government jobs (at all levels) in the U.S. economy has changed annually in recent years:

2013: -57,000

2014: +129,000

2015: +151,000

2016: +206,000

2017: +18,000

Because government jobs are included in the economy-wide job total, much of the reason that the subsidized private’s share in American employment overall kept growing between 2016 and 2017 (from 15.76 percent to 15.85 percent, as shown above), was because the government share fell from 15.34 percent to 15.12 percent.

Yet because the numbers are so big in absolute terms, even this government hiring slowdown has only bent down slightly the growth curve of the subsidized private sector’s importance over the last year, not stopped it, much less thrown it into reverse. That becomes evident upon examining the subsidized private sector’s share of total employment at the start of the recession, the start of the recovery, and for every December starting with 2013:

December, 2007: 13.22 percent

June, 2009: 14.97 percent

December, 2013: 15.43 percent

December, 2014: 15.44 percent

December, 2015: 15.60 percent

December, 2016: 15.76 percent

December, 2017: 15.85 percent

So the type of good news/bad news story that’s been characteristic of many economic trends during the current recovery holds for the prominence of subsidized private sector employment, too. It’s hard to imagine that growth will return to a sound footing until and unless the hiring trends turn decisively in favor of the real private sector.

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(What’s Left of) Our Economy: A Key Sign of Better U.S. Job Quality

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Employment, healthcare services, Jobs, non-farm payrolls, private sector, public sector, real private sector, recession, recovery, subsidized private sector, {What's Left of) Our Economy

The U.S. government’s latest jobs report makes clear that the economy is well past the impact of the latest hurricane season, so it’s a great time to see if a new development in the makeup of American employment and hiring that began to appear this year. And last Friday’s non-farm payrolls figures (for November) confirm that it’s still in place: What I call the subsidized private sector is losing some noteworthy steam as a prime engine of the economy’s job creation during the current economic recovery, while the remaining “real private sector” is gaining momentum.

Not that the subsidized private sector – which consists of industries like healthcare, whose levels of output and therefore employment depend heavily on government subsidies – is a spent job-creation force. In fact, its share of total U.S. jobs on a standstill basis remains much higher than either at the start of the ongoing recovery and than at the onset of the last recession. But the growth curve has taken a significant bend down over the past year. And that’s good news if you believe – as you should – that the most sustainable type of job creation is that spawned by the part of the economy that’s shaped overwhelmingly by market forces.

First let’s look at the numbers over the last few years. For the first eleven months of 2017 (the new November figures are of course preliminary), the subsidized private sector accounted for 21.97 percent of all the economy’s net new hiring. That’s still considerably more than its share of employment last month (15.82 percent). But it’s significantly lower than the eleven-month share from last year – 24.12 percent.

In fact, this 2016-2017 decrease is the first such annual decline in several years. From 2013 to 2015, the number grew from 12.28 percent to 15.82 percent to 23.93 percent.

The converse has also been true: The real private sector’s share of total net new job creation has rebounded this year after falling since 2013: Here are those January-November numbers:

2013: 89.58 percent

2014: 80.09 percent

2015: 70.81 percent

2016: 66.47 percent

2017: 75.84 percent

Nonetheless, the subsidized private sector has built up such powerful employment momentum that its share of total non-farm payrolls (NFP) and of real private sector (RPS) jobs keeps growing. Here’s where it’s stood on some key recent dates.

December, 2007 (recession onset): 13.22 percent of NFP, 18.72 percent of RPS

June, 2009 (recovery start): 14.97 percent of NFP, 22.08 percent of RPS

November, 2017 (latest): 15.82 percent of NFP, 22.92 percent of RPS

Yet the momentum has waned a bit more recently, as the data from the last few Novembers shows:

November, 2014: 15.44 percent of NFP, 22.40 percent of RPS

November, 2015: 15.59 percent of NFP, 22.60 percent of RPS

November, 2016: 15.72 percent of NFP, 22.80 percent of RPS

November, 2017: 15.82 percent of NFP, 22.92 percent of RPS

In other words, between November, 2014 and November, 2015, the subsidized private sector’s share of NFP increased by 0.97 percent and of RPS by 0.89 percent.

Between the following Novembers, these growth rates had slowed to 0.83 percent and 0.88 percent, respectively. But they slowed much more significantly over the subsequent year (through last month) – to 0.64 percent and 0.53 percent, respectively.

This slowdown, moreover, could speed up if major changes are made in the nation’s healthcare system, as still seems distinctly possible. In turn, these developments look like a big economic wild card going forward. For now, though, better quality job creation has joined slightly better quality economic growth as two hallmarks of President Trump’s first year in office. Whether he’s had anything to do with them or not, they’re pieces of good economic news that shouldn’t be overlooked.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: America Keeps Getting More Manufacturing-Lite

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Commerce Department, finance, GDP, Great Recession, gross domestic product, healthcare, manufacturing, real value-added, recovery, subsidized private sector, value added, {What's Left of) Our Economy

The Commerce Department’s “GDP [Gross Domestic Product] by Industry” reports aren’t considered market movers by those in the know in economics, business, and finance. Still, I find them well worth following because they provide the most authoritative evidence available on whether numerous claims about the economy’s strengths and weaknesses meet the reality test.

The big takeaway here? For all the post-financial crisis talk from politicians across the political spectrum about the need to reindustrialize the U.S. economy, manufacturing remains a major growth laggard. Indeed, by two key measures, it still hasn’t recovered fully from the Great Recession.

Commerce’s latest report takes the story up to the second quarter of this year, and revises the previously published results back to 2014. For some reason, the new 2014 numbers won’t come out till next month, but we do have the 2015, 2016, and first quarter 2017 revisions. Here’s what they say.

From 2015 through the first quarter of this year, manufacturing’s inflation adjusted growth rate – according to a gauge called “real value added,” which aims at eliminating unintentional double-counting – has been a few ticks lower than originally judged. The 2015 performance was revised down by 0.6 percentage points, the 2016 growth was upgraded by a full percentage point, and the first quarter 2017 result was downgraded by 0.8 percentage points. As for the latest, second quarter 2017 number, it’s a healthy four percent at an annual rate.

Manufacturing real value added’s contributions to growth have been a little more modest, too – which means that it’s been growing more slowly than the rest of the economy. That trend comes through more clearly from the Commerce data showing industry’s actual share of GDP. The main numbers are presented in current dollar terms, meaning that they don’t factor in inflation. But they make clear that manufacturing value added has declined from representing 12.1 percent of total American economic output in 2015 to accounting for just 11.5 percent in the second quarter of 2017.

To make the point even more emphatically, when the Great Recession broke out, in the fourth quarter of 2007, manufacturing value added represented 12.4 percent of gross domestic product.

Of course, there’s a case to be made (not that I accept it) that as long as manufacturing is growing, it doesn’t matter whether it’s becoming a bigger or smaller share of American economic output. But even by these standards, U.S. manufacturing is faltering. The new Commerce numbers show that, since the recession began, manufacturing real value-added is down. It’s not down by much – 0.18 percent in toto. But we’re talking about absolute shrinkage over a period of nearly ten years.

As RealityChek regulars know, the Federal Reserve’s industrial production reports (which also adjust for inflation), peg manufacturing’s shrinkage since the end of 2007 at an even greater 4.26 percent. Only if you take price increases out of the picture does manufacturing show a real recovery. In current dollar value added terms, it’s grown by 18.26 percent during this period.

But even by these terms, manufacturing’s laggard status stands out. In fact, since the fourth quarter of 2007, it’s share of the economy’s value-added has fallen by 10.16 percent. That’s the greatest such drop in the whole economy after mining (26.09 percent) and construction (10.42 percent).

The leaders, by these criteria? The subsidized private sector (industries, notably healthcare services, whose size is determined largely by government largesse) is number one, increasing its share of value added by 16.22 percent. Next is a supersector comprising arts, recreation, accommodation, and food services (up 13.89 percent). And remember all the concern that the pre-recession, bubble-ized economy of the previous decade was too Wall Street heavy? Since it brought the entire world to the brink of economic disaster, the finance super-sector has boosted its share of value added by a healthy 5.05 percent.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Trump & Workers, by the Numbers

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blue-collar workers, construction, healthcare services, Helaine Olen, inflation adjusted wages, Jobs, manufacturing, mining, real private sector, real wages, regulation, Steven Greenhouse, subsidized private sector, The Nation, The New York Times, Trump, unions, wages, workers, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Since Donald Trump first declared his presidential candidacy, he’s been dogged by charges that he’s a phony populist, and that his working class supporters have long been hoodwinked by his promises of restoring factory and other blue collar jobs and living standards. And this past Labor Day inspired the President’s critics to double down, as evinced by this piece by long-time labor reporter Steven Greenhouse in The New York Times and this one by economist Helaine Olen in The Nation.

So it seems appropriate for RealityChek‘s slightly delayed analysis of the latest monthly jobs report to include some data bearing on these questions. The verdict? Whatever anti-union and deregulatory measures the Trump administration has backed, its first months in office overall have been just about as good for blue-collar industries and blue-collar employees as during the latest comparable period during the supposedly worker-friendly Obama administration.

First, the manufacturing highlights of last Friday’s August jobs report:

>August saw the best month of net new job creation in U.S. industry since August, 2014 (36,000 in each month.

>Although the August and July totals are still preliminary, their combined sequential employment increase of 62,000 was the highest such figure since the 68,000 improvement in December, 2011 and January, 2012. This back-to-back total reduces the odds that the August numbers are a fluke.

>On a year-on-year basis, manufacturing’s August gain of 138,000 contrasts strikingly with the 5,000 net job loss in industry between the previous Augusts. In fact, this new annual advance was manufacturing’s strongest since the 139,000 yearly gain in August, 2015.

>Reenforcing this conclusion are the strong upward revisions for monthly manufacturing job growth in June (from an upwardly revised 12,000 to 21,000) and for July (from 16,000 to 26,000)

>Manufacturing has now regained 1.027 million (44.79 percent) of the 2.293 million jobs it lost from the onset of the last recession (at the end of 2007) through its jobs bottom in February and March, 2010.

>Yet manufacturing employment is still down 9.21 percent since the downturn’s beginning. During that period, overall private sector employment is up by 7.23 percent.

>Manufacturing’s wage performance, however, slumped notably in August. Pre-inflation wages sank sequentially by 0.56 percent – the worst such drop since May, 2012’s 0.63 percent.

>It’s true that manufacturing wages have been volatile this year, with July recording a strong month-on-month gain of 0.53 percent. But the yearly August manufacturing wage rise of 1.76 percent not only trailed the previous August-to-August rise of 2.68 percent. It was also the smallest annual increase since July, 2015’s 1.57 percent.

>By contrast, August current dollar wages in the private sector overall were up by 0.11 percent sequentially and 2.53 percent year-on-year. The latter total was just slightly below the 2.55 percent increase achieved between August, 2015 and August, 2016.

>Since the current recovery began, in mid-2009, pre-inflation manufacturing wages have risen by only 15.25 percent total. For the private sector overall, they’ve increased by 19.20 percent.

>As a result, the gap between private sector pre-inflation wage increases and those gains in manufacturing stood at 20.57 percent in August. One encouraging development for manufacturing workers: Last August, the gap was much wider: 27.92 percent.

>On an after-inflation basis, manufacturing’s wage performance remains mixed compared with the rest of the private sector. The latest data are from July, and show a monthly gain of 0.37 percent for manufacturing workers and 0.19 percent for the private sector overall – barely half as much.

>Year-on-year, however, manufacturing’s real wage gains slightly lagged those of the private sector in toto in July – 0.74 percent versus 0.75 percent.

>And the gap is even wider during the current recovery – inflation-adjusted wage gains of only 1.96 percent for manufacturing workers during this more than eight-year period, versus an improvement of 4.75 percent for the entire private sector.

But what about the Trump-Obama comparison? Here are the main numbers, using February as the first plausible month of “Trump-onomics”:

>From this past February through August, total net new U.S. job creation is up by 0.66 percent, versus 0.83 percent from last February through last August – the final such period during Mr. Obama’s presidency. So score one for the previous administration? Maybe. But the economy is also deeper into the recovery, and just about at the official definition of full employment. So it’s natural that job-creation should slow down some.

>Interestingly, the difference is much smaller when looking at private sector job creation. Last February through last August, it grew by 0.84 percent. During the comparable Trump period, it’s increased by 0.79 percent. That’s one sign that the Trump employment performance has been healthier, and therefore more sustainable, because it’s been more private-sector driven, than the late Obama version.

>This difference becomes even more pronounced when looking at trends in the subsidized private sector – those industries traditionally considered private sector (notably healthcare) that nonetheless depend heavily on government subsidies. Hence my decision to place them in a separate category.

>So far this year, under President Trump, subsidized private sector jobs have indeed increased strongly – by 0.95 percent. But that’s a much slower rate of growth than the 1.29 percent recorded during the comparable Obama months.

>As a result, employment growth in the “real” private sector has been faster under Mr. Trump – by 0.76 percent to 0.74 percent – and this, again, despite the arrival of full employment.

>Continuing sector by sector, the statistics show that the some of the biggest employment gains during President Trump’s tenure have taken place in blue-collar heavy industries that performed poorly during the comparable final Obama period.

>Principally, net employment from this past February through August is up by 0.83 percent in manufacturing, by 4.96 percent in mining and logging, and by 0.68 percent in construction.

>The comparable Obama administration numbers: -0.27 percent, -6.90 percent, and +0.63 percent, respectively.

>More broadly, blue-collar employment throughout the entire economy (defined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics as production and non-supervisory workers) has increased at the same pace during the two time periods in question (0.70 percent), though in absolute numbers, the Trump administration gains are a bit larger (714,000) than the corresponding Obama administration advances (701,000) – again, despite the arrival or near-arrival of full employment.

>Where blue-collar workers fared better so far during the Obama period than during the Trump period is on the wage front. But they haven’t fared massively better.

>For all private sector production and non-supervisory workers, pre-inflation wages were up by 1.36 percent during those Obama months, and 1.19 percent during the Trump months.

>The same trends have been visible in the blue-collar industries. During the Obama months in 2016, current-dollar wages rose by 1.78 percent in manufacturing, 0.82 percent in mining and logging, and 2.60 percent in construction.

>The Trump results? 1.26 percent, 0.87 percent, and 1.98 percent, respectively.

>In other words, the only blue-collar sector in which blue-collar workers have outperformed under President Trump has been in the mining sector – which has seen by far the biggest employment outperformance.

Of course, the Trump administration is still pretty young, and any or all of these trends could change, and change dramatically, in the months ahead. But until they do, it’s clear that Mr. Trump’s presidency has neither devastated the workers who supported him so ardently or made their lives Great Again. And any analysts denying that the truth so far lies somewhere in between – including the administration’s own grandstanders – have some explaining to do.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: Where the Trump Record is Looking Different

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Barack Obama, Bureau of Labor Statitics, Employment, Great Recession, healthcare, Jobs, Mainstream Media, private sector, real private sector, recovery, subsidized private sector, Trump, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Since of course there’s no Mainstream Media bubble or echo chamber, it must be a total coincidence that the press last week was filled with articles noting that the U.S. economy today (which President Trump keeps praising) looks pretty similar to the U.S. economy before the last presidential election (which candidate Trump decried).

Generally speaking, these observations are right – with one important exception that’s been universally overlooked: Job creation this year so far has owed significantly more to the “real private sector” of the American economy and less to the “subsidized private sector.” That is, more hiring is coming in the part of the economy in which employment levels generally reflect free market forces, and therefore speak volumes about the whole economy’s fundamentals. And less hiring is taking place in industries like healthcare services, where job creation largely reflects levels of government support that stems from political decisions. Therefore, however worthy their services, employment performance in these sectors says little about the state of the economy.

RealityChek observed the possible start of this trend two months ago. Now that we’re halfway through the year, it looks more solidly established. As usual, the best evidence comes from comparing job creation in the first six months of this year with job creation during the same periods in past years. (Keep in mind, however, that the statistics for May and June, 2017, are still preliminary; that is, they’ll be revised in the next two months – and then revised again early next year along with the results for all of 2017. For good measure, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will recalculate them again further down the road.)

For the first six months of this year, total U.S. net employment gains (in the “non-farm” sector that represents the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ American employment universe) came to 1.079 million. Of these, 20.95 percent came in the subsidized private sector, and 74.05 percent came in the real private sector. (The rest came in government at all levels.)

Those figures are much different than those for the first six months of 2016 – 28.44 percent and 60.83 percent. In fact, the January-June 2017 results represent the first time since 2014 when the subsidized private sector share of total job creation fell and the real private sector share rose. At the same time, the subsidized private sector’s role in total hiring is way up from January-June, 2013 – when it was only 14.22 percent. And the real private sector’s role is way down (from 92.63 percent that year).

Another way to look at hiring developments: During the first half of 2013, subsidized private sector job creation totaled 13.31 percent of job creation in the private sector as it’s conventionally defined (that is, including the subsidized industries). By the first half of 2016, the subsidized industries’ share of conventionally defined private sector net new employment had more than doubled: to 31.86 percent.

Finally, let’s see how these employment numbers have changed on a stand-still basis.

In December, 2007 – on the eve of the Great Recession – the subsidized private sector accounted for 13.22 percent of all non-farm jobs, the share of the private sector conventionally defined was 83.83 percent, and that of the real private sector was 70.62 percent.

In June, 2009 – when the recovery began – these figures were: subsidized private sector, 14.97 percent; conventional private sector, 82.77 percent; and real private sector, 67.80 percent.

And this June? Subsidized private sector, 15.78 percent; conventional private sector, 84.73 percent; and real private sector, 68.96 percent.

In other words, although the punch has slacked off a bit, the subsidized private sector is still punching above its weight when it comes to job creation. We know this because its share of new hiring for the first six months of this year (20.95 percent) remained greater than its share of total American employment as it stood in June (15.78 percent). The real private sector is outperforming, too, but the gap is much smaller proportionately.  (The – big – slacker has been the public sector.)

Also, eight years into the current economic recovery, the real private sector’s share of total American jobs is smaller, and the subsidized private sector’s share is larger, than they were at the start of the expansion.

There’s no doubt that the American job market today is in much better shape than it was at the start of the recovery – and that most of this progress took place before President Trump took office. Nor is there much reason to doubt that until the economy’s reliance on the subsidized private sector for job creation falls considerably more, it will difficult to claim legitimately that the employment scars of the recession have fully healed. But something else that’s now increasingly clear is that a crucial job quality front, the Trump economy is looking notably different – and better.    

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

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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.

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.

(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: Why the New Jobs Report May Really Matter

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Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employment, healthcare services, Jobs, non-farm jobs, real private sector, recession, recovery, subsidized private sector, {What's Left of) Our Economy

I have no idea how much credit President Trump deserves for the February U.S. jobs figures released last Friday that nearly everyone hailed as a strong performance. I feel somewhat more confident in noting that the results provided some preliminary indications – regardless of who or what deserves credit – that one of the most troubling features of the current employment recovery may have peaked.

Specifically, the February numbers show a reversal of the economy’s burgeoning reliance on what I call the subsidized private sector to generate employment gains, and a revival of the role played by the real private sector. That’s great news if these developments continue.

To summarize, the subsidized private sector consists of those American industries classified officially as private sector industries, but where levels of demand – and therefore employment – depend heavily on government subsidies. Healthcare services is the leading example. The real private sector is hardly devoid of government influence. But its levels of demand and employment are largely shaped by free market forces.

And since the real private sector leads the economy in innovation and productivity, signs that it’s regaining its relative job-creation chops deserve cheers.

I called the encouraging signs preliminary because they only cover the first two data months of this year. But they reveal that, in January and February, the subsidized private sector created only 17.55 percent of the 473,000 total net new jobs created by the economy. (Both numbers will be revised several times more.) That’s a much smaller share than the subsidized industries generated last January and February: 24.79 percent of the 363,000 net gain in employment.

The same conclusions flow from another set of data. During the first two data months of this year, the subsidized private sector accounted for 18.53 percent of the total employment improvement of the private sector as it’s conventionally defined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. During the first two months of last year, that figure was 27.19 percent.

At the same time, the subsidized industries clearly are still punching above their weight on the employment front. In 2013, their two-month share of all net new jobs was only 13.48 percent, and of conventionally defined private sector jobs, 13.59 percent.

Looking at the economy on a standstill basis also reveals the importance of subsidized private sector job-creation. When the last recession began, at the end of 2007, it represented 13.22 percent of all non-farm payrolls (the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ U.S. jobs universe). When the current recovery began, in the middle of 2009, the subsidized private sector share had grown to 14.97 percent. And as of last month, despite the developments noted above, this percentage was up to 15.74 percent.

And this subsidized private sector growth has come in part at the expense of the real private sector. It’s share of total U.S. employment as of last month (68.94 percent) is still higher than at the recovery’s onset (67.80 percent). But it’s lower than its level at the onset of the last recession (70.62 percent).

Viewed from another perspective, when the current recovery began, as mentioned above, the subsidized private sector represented 14.97 percent of total American jobs. But since that time, it’s been responsible for 22.60 percent of total employment growth. The real private sector at the beginning of the current recovery accounted for 67.80 percent of total American jobs. And it’s share of subsequent employment growth has been higher, too (79.10 percent). But the gap between its share of employment and its role in employment growth is much lower than that of the subsidized industries.

Finally, the new jobs report contained some good news for fans of former President Obama. It revealed that from the start of the recovery that began a few months into his first term in office, through the end of his administration, hiring was slightly less subsidized private sector-heavy than originally reported.

There’s no doubt that two months’ worth of data per se hardly signal the dawn of a new, brighter era in American employment. At the same time, most trends don’t last forever. So in the months ahead, these subsidized private sector job trends will deserve more attention than ever. Indeed, they’ll be at least as important a yardstick for judging the Trump administration’s economic performance as the overall jobs totals.

(What’s Left of) Our Economy: The Real U.S. Private Sector’s Employment Role Keeps Shrinking and Shrinking

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Bill Clinton, Employment, George W. Bush, healthcare services, Jobs, Labor Department, non-farm jobs, Obama, private sector, recoveries, subsidized private sector, {What's Left of) Our Economy

Because the latest monthly U.S. jobs figures that were released last Friday incorporated revisions going back to last March, our picture is clearer than ever of how dependent former President Obama’s job-creation record was on employment gains in what I call the economy’s subsidized private sector. Those are industries, notably healthcare service, where levels of demand (and therefore employment) are heavily reliant on government subsidies (and therefore politicians’ decisions) instead of on market forces.*

And unless you believe that government or parts of the economy it largely underwrites should be America’s job-creation leaders – which you shouldn’t – you’ll recognize that the more prominent that subsidized private sector is in the nation’s employment picture, the weaker the job market’s dynamics, and the U.S. economy’s genuine strength.

The verdict? These subsidized industries played a large, growing role in U.S. employment gains achieved during the economic expansion that began in June of Mr. Obama’s first year in office. At the same time, although the economy under Mr. Obama performed much better in this crucial respect than under his predecessor, George W. Bush, it fell short of the job-creation pattern under Mr. Bush’s predecessor, Bill Clinton.

The easiest way to show these trends is to focus on the share of total non-farm employment (the American jobs universe according to the U.S. Department of Labor, which officially tallies these numbers) accounted for by the subsidized private sector on a stand-still basis and the share of total job gains it represents. That methodology also yields the data on how employment in what might be called the “real private sector” is faring. And here are the numbers for the last administration:

 
Non-farm job change: +14.534m Percentage change: +11.09

Private sector job change: +14.833m Percentage change: +13.68

Subsidized private sector job change: +3.276m Percentage change: +16.70

Real private sector job change +11.557m Percentage change: +13.01

 

The following numbers show how strongly the subsidized private sector has influenced overall job creation under Mr. Obama:

 
Share of total non-farm job gains: 22.54 percent

Share of conventionally defined private sector job gains: 22.09 percent

 
As a result, the real private sector accounted for 80.51 percent of total non-farm job gains – a high but much smaller share than that resulting from failing to strip out the subsidized jobs (102.06 percent – the discrepancy comes from the absolute reduction in government jobs under President Obama).

Moreover, the subsidized private sector’s importance grew impressively during the Obama years. Between 2015 and 2016, it produced 24.44 percent of all non-farm jobs generated and 26.68 percent of all the employment improvement in the private sector as conventionally defined.

Nevertheless, if the subsidized private sector’s employment role grew robustly under President Obama, it positively skyrocketed during the Bush recovery of the 2000s compared with the rest of the economy. Let’s start by examining the job increases in the relevant major sectors of the economy from the end of 2001 to the end of 2007 – an expansion much shorter than that which began under President Obama:

 
Non-farm job change: +7.139m Percentage change +5.45

Private sector job change: +6.388m Percentage change +5.83

Subsidized private sector job change: +2.827m Percentage change +17.56

Real private sector job change +4.191m Percentage change +4.48

 
The contrast with the Obama years is even more striking when you specify the percent of jobs created for which the subsidized private sector was responsible. In the most important measures, both numbers are roughly twice as high:
Share of total non-farm job gains: 39.60 percent

Share of conventionally defined private sector job gains: 44.25 percent
As a result, the real private sector accounted for just 58.71 percent of total non-farm job gains under former President Bush – way smaller than the share than that resulting from failing to strip out the subsidized jobs (89.48 percent).

But the data leave little doubt that the best recent job-creation performance of recent presidents was turned in by Bill Clinton – with one caveat. Here are the figures for the economic expansion that began in April, 1991 (several months before his first inauguration) and February, 2001 (a month after he left office).

 

Non-farm job change: +24.412m Percentage change +22.53

Private sector job change: +21.991m Percentage change +24.47

Subsidized private sector job change: +4.109m Percentage change +35.84

Real private sector job change +17.882m Percentage change +22.80

 

In terms of the employment-generation role played by the subsidized private sector, here’s what these numbers show for the Clinton expansion:

 
Share of total non-farm job gains: 16.83 percent

Share of conventionally defined private sector job gains: 18.68 percent

 

The one blemish in the Clinton record is the very strong relative growth shown by the subsidized private sector both in absolute and percentage terms. Yet these developments didn’t move the overall job change numbers nearly as much as under Presidents Bush and Obama because they started from a considerably smaller base.

 
Finally, let’s examine how the subsidized and real private sectors’ share of total employment on a static basis has changed since the Clinton expansion began, with the beginning and end of that recovery and subsequent recoveries as our benchmarks:

 
Subsidized private sector as share of non-farm employment, start of Clinton recovery: 10.58 percent

Real private sector share: 72.36 percent

 

Subsidized private sector as share of non-farm employment, end of Clinton recovery: 11.73 percent

Real private sector share: 72.53 percent

 

Subsidized private sector as share of non-farm employment, start of Bush recovery: 12.29%

Real private sector share: 71.41 percent

 

Subsidized private sector as share of non-farm employment, end of Bush recovery: 13.67%

Real private sector share: 70.16 percent

 

Subsidized private sector as share of non-farm employment, start of Obama recovery: 14.97 percent

Real private sector share: 67.80 percent

 

Subsidized private sector as share of non-farm employment, latest Obama data: 15.73

Real private sector share: 68.97 percent

 
The best way to sum up these trends?  In my view, it’s realizing that, since the Clinton recovery began three and one half decades ago, the American economy has generated 37.188 million net new jobs. At that time, the subsidized private sector represented 10.58 percent of total employment.  Since then, it’s been responsible for 30.72 percent of the net new jobs created in the nation — punching way above its weight

The real private sector in April, 1991 accounted for 72.36 percent of the country’s total employment.  Since then, it’s produced 59.08 percent of net new jobs — punching well below its weight.  And finally, fully 52 percent of all the added employment created since April, 1991 that is officially classified as private sector has actually come in the subsidized private sector.

In other words, Presidents come and presidents go, and the economy expands and contracts. But for the last 35 or so years, the subsidized private sector has continued to grow in relative importance. Donald Trump is already considered to be the greatest disruptor in the presidency’s recent history. Is this trend, though, too powerful even for him to resist?

*As always, my definition of the subsidized private sector is not meant to be inclusive.  It simply includes three parts of the economy – healthcare services, the for-profit education sector, and social assistance agencies – that are broken out in the Labor Department data, and that therefore are easy to identify.  It should also encompass workers in sectors like defense-related manufacturing, but many of these are much more difficult to quantify.