Waiting for jobs to make showing

The Labor Department’s latest monthly report on job openings and labor turnover isn’t quite the good news many would have us believe.

It says that there were 4.7 million job openings across the country at the end of July. But what it doesn’t say is that there were 9.7 million job seekers in July — more than twice as many looking for jobs as there were available jobs.

So it’s hard to see any clear progress in joblessness. While the U.S. labor market has improved since the Great Recession ended midway through President Obama’s first term, it is nowhere near full employment.

Indeed, in August, the nation’s unemployment rate declined a tick, to 6.1 percent. North Carolina’s rate is very similar, leveling off after several months of decline from the double-digit mess during the recession. But there is less to that seemingly encouraging figure than meets the eye — because it had nothing to do with idle workers finding jobs and almost everything to do with nearly 3 million Americans dropping out of the workforce.

This has become an all-too-common refrain over the years since the economic downturn of 2008.

In fact, the nation’s labor participation rate fell to 62.8 percent in August, the lowest level since Jimmy Carter sat in the Oval Office. And while some attribute the decline to the growing ranks of the retirement-aged, the fact is that most of the 3 million workforce dropouts are of prime working age, 25-54 years old. The other factor to consider is that many are in part-time jobs, not full time. The term “under-employed” seems to define American life today.

If the White House is at all concerned about these disquieting trends within the nation’s labor market, it isn’t letting on. Instead, it is congratulating itself that Obama has presided over “the longest streak of job growth in history” — 10 million private-sector jobs over 54 straight months.

“This figure is a marker of the progress that has been made,” stated Jason Furman, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisors. It is a sign of the “strength” of the Obama economy, wrote White House staff blogger Tanya Somanader.

To us, the figure is a reminder that the nation’s employers need to add another 20 million jobs — on top of the 10 million the White House celebrates — to employ all those looking for full-time permanent work.

That’s why the 142,000 jobs created in August was such a disappointment. While it put a bow on the record 54th straight month of job growth, it also was the smallest monthly increase in 2014.

In fact, a headline in the New York Times suggested the August jobs report was so disquieting, it actually is “raising fear of malaise,” which we thought banished when Carter was turned out of the White House in 1981 by Ronald Reagan.

— From the Jacksonville (North Carolina) Daily News