Over 100k Jobs Created in September; Economy Improving

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has reported that 114,000 net jobs were created in September 2012, while job-opening research firm EmploymentCrossing located about 1.9 million job openings. The job surge led to a drop in unemployment from 8.1 percent in August to 7.8 percent. The BLS also revised its reported number of jobs created in July and August to include 86,000 jobs not initially noted. Despite unfounded claims to having “cooked” the jobs numbers, the BLS has been praised by renowned economist Paul Krugman who has stepped up to defend the agency and its conclusions as publicly verifiable and reliable.

Krugman’s analysis also concludes that the labor market is improving so job creation must be consistently exceeding growth in the working-age population. Further, September’s numbers also strongly suggest that most of the month’s job growth did not come from part-time work but from new full-time positions. Krugman also thinks that the number of reported discouraged workers (those who have given up looking for work and thus considered unemployed) is greatly exaggerated and that the 7.8 percent unemployment rate is probably high as a result.

Another near-future report that will help clarify the state of the nation’s workforce is the Job Opening and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) which will be released on October 10. The report will disclose the number of job openings in August after having previously reporting 3.7 million job openings in July. Additionally, the report will address the job-search status of the millions of American hires and separations.