Trump creates 186,182 jobs! 

Trump creates 186,182 jobs! 

The March jobs report just came in and the president is jubilant. It said that 186,000 new jobs were created, a figure three times that which was expected. This tells us at least two things. First, the experts should be fired. When have they ever been remotely in the right neighborhood? Second, what are the actual job numbers after the revisions. They probably won’t be the 133,000 job loss in February but don’t you think that these wild swings in the numbers are a wee bit suspicious? Trump, of course took credit for the job increase (he did not take credit for the job loss) when he tweeted “A very happy and blessed Good Friday to all, especially to the 186,000 Americans who gained Private Sector jobs in the month of March alone! My Economic Policies have created an enormously powerful engine of Economic Growth, and nothing can slow it down.” Factory Construction Jobs are soaring as a result of the rapid Onshoring and surging Investment that TARIFFS have generated, all while the Trade Deficit has shrunk by 52% in a year!”

I don’t want to throw cold water on such exuberance but if you break down the numbers, overall construction jobs grew by only 26,000 and the manufacturing sector remained flat. Most of the job growth was again in healthcare with a gain of 78,000, transportation and warehousing up 21,000. Finance was down 15,000 jobs while the federal government shed another 18,000. If you can see a sector where tariffs generated positive job growth please show me. BTW, I could not find how many of those 26,000 construction jobs were factory construction jobs. One worry though is that labor force participation fell again and is now 61.9 percent. That means that more people dropped out of the labor force and are no longer seeking jobs. Recall that the unemployment rate only counts those people out of a job and seeking a job. Also contrary to Trump’s patting himself on the back is that the Institute for supply Management noted that their index fell to 48.7 which indicates a contraction in the economy (positive growth would be an index over 50).

So let’s wait to see what the revision tells us. In February job losses were initially reported as 92,000 and revised to a loss of 133,000. When the March numbers get revised downward don’t expect a press release from the White House. But just for comparison, here is the statement from the White House for the March preliminary numbers:

“The March jobs report blew out expectations with strong construction job growth and a surge in manufacturing job creation as trillions of dollars in investments begin to materialize. America remains on a solid economic trajectory thanks to President Trump’s proven agenda of tax cuts, deregulation, tariffs, and energy dominance. Americans can rest assured that after the short-term disruptions of Operation Epic Fury are behind us, America’s economic resurgence is set to only accelerate.”

Again, the statement is puzzling given the numbers for construction jobs and manufacturing jobs reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But as to the real numbers, we will wait and see.

In addition to the 186,000 jobs created in March, Trump also created 182 more in agriculture. Earlier Trump said that one of his goals – through deportations, shutting down the border and tariffs – was to create a 100 percent American agricultural workforce. Well the Department of Labor just released a report showing that US workers applied for a whopping 182 of 415,000 agricultural jobs advertised last year. 

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/farm-labor-trump-administration-h-2a-visas-immigrants-d028e121

I thought that was a misprint. But farmers report crops rotting in the fields because they can’t get workers. The irony is that agricultural produce is having to be imported because American crops cannot be harvested. And of course, due to the tariffs, food prices are going up. Do you think that the farmers can push Stephen Miller to agree to a guest worker program?