Why yes, yes it is...

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 206,000 in June, and the unemployment rate changed little at 4.1 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in government, health care, social assistance, and construction.

Changed little eh?  Well, looking at the chart it would appear that it "changed little" but in one direction for the last, oh, year or so -- and that direction would be upward.  They do say that, to their credit, a couple of paragraphs down.

The unadjusted household numbers have some curious data found within the "not-knob-twisted" columns.  Specifically, the unadjusted job count was up 433,000 but the "couch surfing" number, not-in-labor-force figure, was down by 1.241 million.  Also interesting was that the looking for work (e.g. actively seeking a job) figure in the same table of the household survey was down from 6.259 million to 5.655 and on that basis the unemployment rate wasn't up one tick, it went from 3.7 to 4.3%.

I usually caution on June in this regard because we graduate people from High School during that month, but the educational attainment table appears to show that this year the sample week that overlapped graduation for the most part was in May.  That does happen from time to time, so this leads to plenty of questions when it comes to attempting to square the official figures with the other official figures from the household survey on an unadjusted basis.

The other piece of data worth paying attention to, in my opinion, is that hourly checks annualized were up 3% where per-hour compensation was up 3.5 annualized, which implies (across the economy) that hours are being cut.  Within the detail on that data was a quite-large increase in construction so if you back that out it looks markedly soft last month rather than "just a bit", but of course construction is part of the economy and does count.

Another data point that says "people are getting squeezed" is found in the labor participation rate for those over 65 -- in the last year its up 0.4% and while the total is quite small (about a third of >65 year olds are working, totaling roughly 11.5 million) other figures for participation rate are not so clear.  Specifically, among both men and women who are not disabled the participation rate is nearly-fiat where among those who are disabled for men participation rose while among women it declined, yet among the >65 disability appears to be becoming more-progressive in terms of limiting activity -- and those who aren't are remaining within the workforce in larger numbers.  This begs the obvious question as to whether that participation is voluntary or occurring due to mandatory economic factors (eating is fundamental, after all.)

I wouldn't call this report "soft" but I would also not call it "robust."  For those looking at it as a pointer of potential rate changes I wouldn't get my hopes up based on this number; IMHO there's nothing in this report that points in either direction.

This is a bad number -- especially on the back of last month's report.

The unemployment rate declined to 3.7 percent in September, and total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 134,000, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in professional and business services, in health care, and in transportation and warehousing.

This is utterly nasty and the drop in the unemployment rate is entirely due to an increase in the NILF figure -- people who have left the workforce.

Let's look inside:

In a word: Meh.

The 12 month change is below 2m.  The rate has been over 2m for roughly the last year, but now it is solidly below.  That's bad news, because the increase in working-age population is approximately 2 million, so if you can't manage to put up that number on a 12 month rolling basis you are losing ground.

Heh, look at that "formal unemployment rate" -- it's a multi-generational low.  But does it mean anything?

Not really since there the employment:population ratio is nowhere near the 1969 figures.  Having an "unemployment rate" that is extremely low because people aren't looking for jobs but are either sucking off public assistance or otherwise out of the workforce isn't positive -- it's negative since only working people pay taxes.

Have you looked at the annualized "debt to the penny" figures lately?  No?  Well maybe you should.  I'll help you out with that in the next few days in my usual annual report on exactly how much bullshit Washington DC has emitted into the "economy" and thus the fraud embedded in the GDP "expansion" rate.

Once again having a Bachelors or better did not outperform; all of the educational categories gained, but both high school dropouts and degree-holders managed one tick of advancement.  "Some College" and High School graduates both gained more, however, meaning that once again we are making McJobs and not, as is often said, positions for the "highly educated."

There are also indications of slack in the part-time statistics but this month I ignore them because of Florence.  If they persist into next month, however, they are likely an early indication of a negative turn in the economy and employment situation.

We shall see.