Thumbs Down: Unemployment little changed in February, but Temp work up!

The latest Commissioner's Statement on the Employment
Situation

(http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/jec.pdf)

was issued today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The
text is below.

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Statement of

                          
Keith Hall

                         
Commissioner

                   Bureau of Labor Statistics

                          
before the

                   
Joint Economic Committee

                    
UNITED STATES CONGRESS

                     
Friday, March 5, 2010

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee:

     Thank you for
the opportunity to discuss the employment and unemployment data we released
this morning.

     Nonfarm
payroll employment was little changed (-36,000) in February, and the
unemployment rate held at 9.7 percent.

Employment fell in construction and information, while
temporary help services added jobs. 
Severe winter weather in parts of the country may have affected payroll
employment and hours in February. 
However, as I will explain in a moment, there are too many unknowns to
say precisely how much the weather might have affected these measures.

     Construction
employment fell by 64,000 in February, about in line with the average monthly
job loss over the prior 6 months.

Job losses continued throughout the industry, although
nonresidential specialty trades again accounted for much of the over-the-month
decline.  In the information industry,
employment fell by 18,000.

     Temporary help
services employment increased by 48,000 over the month.  Since last September, this industry has added
284,000 jobs.  Health care employment
continued to trend up in February.

Employment in most other industries showed little or no
change.

     Average weekly
hours for all employees in the private sector decreased by one-tenth of an hour
in February.  Average weekly hours
declined more significantly in construction and manufacturing, 0.5 and 0.4
hour, respectively.  These declines
likely reflect time lost due to the severe winter weather.

     Average hourly
earnings of all employees in the private sector rose by 3 cents in February to
$22.46.  Over the past 12 months, average
hourly earnings have risen by 1.9 percent. 
From January 2009 to January 2010, the Consumer Price Index for All
Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased by 2.7 percent.

     Turning now to
data from the survey of households, most key labor force measures were
essentially unchanged in February.  The
unemployment rate remained at 9.7 percent, with jobless rates for the major
worker groups showing little or no change. 
Of the 14.9 million unemployed in February, the proportion who had been
jobless for 27 weeks or more was 40.9 percent, little different from the
all-time high of 41.2 percent reached in January.

     The number of individuals working part time
who preferred full-time work rose from 8.3 to 8.8 million in February,
partially offsetting a large decrease in January.  Involuntary part-time employment levels had
held at or near 9.2 million in the final months of 2009.

     Before
closing, I would like to return to the issue of how the severe winter weather
in February may have affected the payroll employment estimates released
today.  Major snowstorms struck parts of
the country during the reference period for our establishment survey.  Many schools, government agencies, and
businesses closed temporarily, and many people were off work for a time because
of the storms.

     In the
establishment survey, workers who do not receive any pay for the entire pay
period are not counted as employed.

Therefore, it is possible that the storms had some
negative impact on payroll employment. 
However, not every closure or temporary absence causes a drop in
employment.  Workers are counted as
employed in the establishment survey if they are paid for a single hour during
the reference pay period, whether they worked or not.  Also, half of all workers have bi-weekly,
semi- monthly, or monthly pay periods.  I
would assume that most of them worked during the part of the pay period that
preceded or followed the snow events.  In
addition, we do not know how many workers may have been added to payrolls for
snow removal, cleanup, and repairs due to the storms.  Nor do we know how new hiring or separations
were affected by the weather.  For those
reasons, we cannot say how much February's payroll employment was affected by
the severe weather.

     In our
household survey, persons with a job who miss work for weather-related events
are counted as employed whether or not they are paid for the time off.

     In summary,
nonfarm payroll employment was little changed in February, and the unemployment
rate held at 9.7 percent.