Latest / Bloomberg Intelligence / DOL's Lu on Jobs: Good Report, But Unemployment a Focus (Audio)

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DOL's Lu on Jobs: Good Report, But Unemployment a Focus (Audio) · Bloomberg Intelligence

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  Speaker 1: point three one percent. The tenuere also lower today, the
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  Speaker 1: yield higher one point five seven percent. Go ahead and
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  Speaker 1: blame or credit the payrolls report payrolls climbing two hundred
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  Speaker 1: and fifty five thousand last month. Joining us to tell
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  Speaker 1: us more, Chris Lew, Deputy Secretary u S Department of Labor,
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  Speaker 1: joining us from Washington, d C, home to Bloomberg and
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  Speaker 1: one oh five point seven h D two. Chris Lew,
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  Speaker 1: thank you very much for being with us. Give us
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  Speaker 1: your first analysis of today's jobs report. This is an
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  Speaker 1: incredibly strong report that showed broad based growth in virtually
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  Speaker 1: every single sector. As you said, the top line of
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  Speaker 1: two thousand jobs created this month, seventy straight months of
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  Speaker 1: job growth. That's the longest streak in history. Um the
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  Speaker 1: four point nine percent unemployment. A couple of things of
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  Speaker 1: note of wage growth was two point six percent over
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  Speaker 1: the year. That's the highest we've seen since the recovery.
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  Speaker 1: That was certainly good news. UM. So again, as I
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  Speaker 1: said across the board, this was a great report. We
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  Speaker 1: also had average hourly average weekly hours worked rising by
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  Speaker 1: one tenth of one hour. Correct me if I'm wrong,
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  Speaker 1: but it looks like that means with a hundred twenty
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  Speaker 1: two million private sector workers every week got an additional
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  Speaker 1: one thousand, three hundred nineties six years worked. I mean
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  Speaker 1: that adds up to a lot of minutes. You know,
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  Speaker 1: it adds up to a lot of minuts. I'll trust
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  Speaker 1: you on the math of that one. But I would
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  Speaker 1: say not only that figure, but also the increase in
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  Speaker 1: temporary help hiring. UM, those are both leading indicators. That
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  Speaker 1: suggests we're trying to bring on more people in a
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  Speaker 1: part time We're trying to everyone is working a little
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  Speaker 1: bit long. Um. That votes well for future hiring. Partific
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  Speaker 1: bodes well for future hiring. Let's just take a look
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  Speaker 1: at revisions. Do we expect a major revision in this
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  Speaker 1: number because previous jobs report have been revised. For example,
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  Speaker 1: the May figure was revised I believe down by about
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  Speaker 1: fourteen thousands to just four thousand. Yeah, we've um you
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  Speaker 1: know that that that is what happens when you are
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  Speaker 1: surveying an economy of the size that we have in
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  Speaker 1: the United States, and so every month you get some revisions,
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  Speaker 1: but you know, buy and large, we're pretty close. And
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  Speaker 1: I think what we tend to look at more is
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  Speaker 1: the trends. And if you look at over the UH
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  Speaker 1: the year, we've created jobs at a hundred eight six
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  Speaker 1: thousand pace, which is very good. Why aren't we seeing
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  Speaker 1: bigger gains in g d P. I mean, the jobs
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  Speaker 1: numbers sound incredible. We're adding more and more people, um,
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  Speaker 1: you know, every month to the labor force. They're making
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  Speaker 1: more and more money, and yet um growth is disappointing. Well,
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  Speaker 1: you know, look, I mean, as you know, GDP numbers
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  Speaker 1: get revised as well. And it's important to take a
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  Speaker 1: look at all of these economic indicators together, not only
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  Speaker 1: today's very strong jobs numbers the weaker GDP numbers, but
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  Speaker 1: also the consumer consience numbers, the consumer spending numbers, the
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  Speaker 1: auto sales which are at a record base. And when
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  Speaker 1: you take a look at all of that, the picture
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  Speaker 1: you see is of a strong, resilient US economy which
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  Speaker 1: still faces headwinds, whether it's a strong dollar or whether
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  Speaker 1: it's weak global demand. We continue to monitor Brexit. So
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  Speaker 1: we have had a great month, We've had a great
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  Speaker 1: streak for seventy months, but we're not taking our foot
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  Speaker 1: off the accelerator. And you're still dealing with this issue
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  Speaker 1: of underemployment. Speak about that if you can, well, right,
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  Speaker 1: you know, in these numbers as well, you see not
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  Speaker 1: only um about of the unemployed or long term unemployed,
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  Speaker 1: which means that they have been out of work for
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  Speaker 1: twenty seven weeks, you see people who are working part
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  Speaker 1: time but want to work full time. So, yeah, the
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  Speaker 1: wor here it's not done. It's not only raising wages.
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  Speaker 1: It's ensuring that everybody who wants a full time job
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  Speaker 1: has access to a full time job. We did have
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  Speaker 1: a little tick up in uh, the labor force participation
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  Speaker 1: rate right now at sixty two point eight percent. We've
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  Speaker 1: been hovering kind of around that level, you could say,
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  Speaker 1: for a couple of years. Um, do you feel like
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  Speaker 1: we've bottomed out here? Because, uh, previous administration officials have said, Look,
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  Speaker 1: the reason it's come down so severely in the past,
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  Speaker 1: let's say thirty or twenty years, is because of the
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  Speaker 1: baby boomers demographics. Do you see it the same way, right,
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  Speaker 1: we need it's hard to compare these numbers with where
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  Speaker 1: we were thirty four years ago with the demographics of
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  Speaker 1: the country of change. But to be sure, we were
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  Speaker 1: not happy with sixty two point eight. We know we
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  Speaker 1: need can see better on that. And one of the
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  Speaker 1: ways we can do better on that is passing paid
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  Speaker 1: family leave and paid sick leaf policies which provide which
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  Speaker 1: helped get more people into the workforce who aren't working
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  Speaker 1: right now. So, UM, that's one of the key numbers
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  Speaker 1: that we look at every Chris lu just finally wonder
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  Speaker 1: if you could characterize the report in terms of the
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  Speaker 1: actual industry groops because they include manufacturing, healthcare, retail, as
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  Speaker 1: well as leisure and hospitality. Well, you're right with virtually
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  Speaker 1: every sector except for one, and that was the mining industry,
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  Speaker 1: which is a proxy for energy. Every other sector major
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  Speaker 1: sector was up, whether it was professional business services, healthcare, financial, leisure,
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  Speaker 1: and hospitality. So it's the range of both high wage,
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  Speaker 1: middle wage and low wage shops. And so we are
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  Speaker 1: very Uh, this is a very good report across the board.
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  Speaker 1: And I mean it looks like we have we have
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  Speaker 1: unemployment coming down. Uh, we have um, inflation going up.
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  Speaker 1: I mean, this seems to be the perfect porridge for
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  Speaker 1: the FED. Do you see us around full employment here
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  Speaker 1: or do you think we still have a long way
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  Speaker 1: to go from four point nine? You know, I don't
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  Speaker 1: want to. I don't want to predict what the said
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  Speaker 1: will do or where full employment is. All I know
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  Speaker 1: is that we we still have more work we can do.
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  Speaker 1: When I look at the number of people that at
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  Speaker 1: our long term unemployed, which is you know, around two million,
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  Speaker 1: I look at the people who are working part time
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  Speaker 1: for economic reasons but want to work full time. You know,
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  Speaker 1: that's about five six million. Um. There are a lot
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  Speaker 1: of people who are not as fully employed as they
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  Speaker 1: could be, So we're not ready to that they rout
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  Speaker 1: full employment fair enough, Chris, thanks so much for joining us.
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  Speaker 1: Chris Leu, their deputy secretary at the Department of Labor
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  Speaker 1: on the July Jobs Report. This is taking Stock. I'm
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  Speaker 1: pim Fox. My co host today Matt Miller. You're gonna
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  Speaker 1: be sticking with me for a while. Mat, I'll do
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  Speaker 1: my best to stay here for another hour, hour and
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  Speaker 1: a half. All right, Well, this is Bloomberg coming up
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  Speaker 1: on taking Stock. We've got Tara Sinclair, the chief economist
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  Speaker 1: of indeed dot com, also Associate Professor Economics George Washington University.
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  Speaker 1: I'm gonna find out, despite the great jobs report, there's
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  Speaker 1: a wrinkle.