Labor force participation was 155,081 in May and 154,504 in July. Down 500K.

Part time for economic reasons holds steady at 8.8 million. This has been steady for 4 months.

Marginally attached to the workforce is 2.3 million up 709,000 from last year. Not counted as unemployed because had not looked in the last 4 weeks. Not sure if these folks are counted in the labor force participation number.

BLS wrote..

In motor vehicles and parts, fewer workers than usual were laid off in July for seasonal retooling. As a result, the estimate of employment for the industry rose by 28,000 after seasonal adjustment. In large part, July's seasonally- adjusted increase reflects the fact that previous job cuts had been so extensive that there were fewer workers to lay off during the seasonal shutdown.

Retail declined by 44K up from a recent average decline of 27K per month.

Someone posted that the birth death adjustment was only 32K this month.

No question that the prior month revisions were in the right direction.

So things are getting worse at a slower rate. Incomes are still going down.

I can't take all the lies anymore.

In my opinion, companies are merely in a Wait-n-See Mode.

Kinda like a Shuttle launch where it passes through Maximum Dynamic Presssure before going With Throttle Up.

The companies are presently in the MDP phase and do not want to lose quality people that might be needed after MDP.

This all fits well with the employment predictions from Dr. Celente, LEAP/E2020, et al.

Just wait until this Fall when it is time to Go With Throttle Up.

I'm sorry, I don't get the "This Fall" reasoning I keep hearing.

So monetizing debt is OK until the weather gets colder?

Lying before congress is OK until the leaves fall off the trees?

Goldman front running your trades is OK until we start carving pumpkins?

What the **** does this fall have to do with what is going on RIGHT NOW?

Just curious, I don't understand the logic.

Good one Coolhand .... LOL

But seriously you are right. The problem with all this is that the longer it goes without prosecution as a crime the less chance of enforcement at all. My best guess is that the sheer size (width and depth) of the crimes that have been committed are bigger than ANY law enforcement agency to sort out and prosecute.

It would take a Special Prosecutor with 1000 attorneys and supporting staff, with special police powers and a special court system to handle all of this.

How do you decide whether to go after GS or the Fed Reserve, members of Congress or former Treasury officials?

Increase in hours worked per week up 0.10 -- isn't that 6 minutes a week?
Why is this so great? How much is one paid for 6 minutes?

..Does this "one" work for Goldman Sachs?

$1.50

An extra buck fiddy a week! Now that's some serious wage inflation.

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I don't get the "This Fall" reasoning I keep hearing.

Simple! It has to do with the next phase of the financial crisis and the probability of when the next down-leg of this Bear Market will occur.

Things which lead up to an accident do not concern people. It is when the accident occurs that people get interested, either as onlookers or participants.

OK, I understand your reasoning, but many many many people have been calling tops and bottoms for the past 2 years and have frequently been WRONG.

Why now can you so confidently pick a collapse so far out?

I think it's all going to fall apart too but can not, with confidence, put a time frame on it.

For all I know, I could happen in the next 30 minutes.

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...but can not, with confidence, put a time frame on it.

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...the probability of when the next down-leg of this Bear Market will occur.

Note the keyword here, as everything can be either probable or not, based upon many factors, which is what I watch.

Could it go past Fall into Winter and early 2010? Sure! Do I think it will? No! Am I "confident"? It depends, as confidence is a factor of dynamic data.

One month's stats doesn't make a trend.

Rarely does a trend move consistently down or up.

Noise....

Thank God I no long trade my money. Being on the right side of the arguement would have broken my by now. This is probably the reason I got out of it in the first place. I had a hard time trading the trend,....when I felt the trend was wrong. No matter how many times I was right about the trend, I ran out of money before the trend ran out of time.

I did not see them but were there not comments out of the White House that the number was going to be bad! Was this all part of a ploy that when the number was better than previous months, the market would jump? Is this not a form of market manipulation? Crimany, what have we turned into?

@Patriotpete: On another blog someone posted about a exchange they had with a previous (unnamed) President. He asked the fmr Prez if he saw the economic numbers prior to their publication. His answer was, "Yes, but not the employment numbers."

If true, then they may have been truly feeling that the numbers would be worse and simply been surprised. If untrue, then it is pure market manipulation.

One needs to be careful when considering the 0.1 hr increase in the average hours worked per week. It does not neccessarily mean that the total hours worked increased. Obviously, a decrease in the number of employed (which occurred) will tend to make the average hours worked to increase (depending on the change in the total hours worked). The 0.1 hr increase is an increase of 0.30%. By how much did the number of employed (the denomenator) decrease? From 131,735k to 131,488k, -247k, or -0.18% decrease. So, almost 2/3 of the increase in average hours worked was caused by the decrease in the number of employed, NOT an increase in the total hours worked. And this assumes that the BLS is not rounding their average hours worked per week averages before calculating the change. If they did that, the actual increase could be much less than 0.1hr.

BLS is such an appropriate acronym. [nobull****]

Question for the forum: The report shows the "Civilian labor force" decreasing in June and July (-422k in July). Why is the labor force declining? Isn't this the total number of people who want to work? I thought this number usually went up, which is why one hears that you have to have job creation just to keep unemployment constant. Obviously, reducing the labor force reduces the unemployment rate. Is somebody cooking the books?

Edit - Brain fart alert. Obviously, decreasing the labor force number would tend to increase the unemployment rate, not decrease it, as I claimed above. But I'm still curious as to why the labor force is decreasing (if it is the number of people who WANT to work).

Edit - Those not seeking work are NOT counted as unemployed (as Karl notes in the Ticker), therefore they are not counted in the labor force (which is employed+unemployed).

http://www.fedstats.gov/qf/meta/long_311....

As Mark Twain wrote, there are "lies, damn lies, and statistics".

Isn't the decline in labor force because people have stopped looking for work? 422k people have stopped looking for work in July so the labor force shrunk by that many?

Striker,

Well, if the "labor force" is just the number of people who are looking for work, these statistics are meaningless. It's like ignoring people who lose unemployment benefits when discussing the continuing claims numbers.

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Labor force participation was 155,081 in May and 154,504 in July. Down 500K.

Yes, this seems to be down at the exact wrong time, (summer).

Yep. I noted that - the big problem in this report is the number of people who gave up.

Can we really rely on this? How much is even statistically significant?

Besides, we are still losing jobs. Until the rate turns positive it is still a drain on GDP. At this rate over 2MM jobs a year. How long can that last.