Political Bloviation

Things are not looking up:

Net Loss of 17,000 Jobs in January Is First Since 2003 - New York Times
U.S. employers unexpectedly cut 17,000 non-farm jobs in January, the first time in nearly 4-1/2 years that U.S. payrolls shrank as fading construction and manufacturing sectors reflected the economy’s waning momentum.

Paul Krugman clarifies the situation:

You shouldn’t take any of this seriously. For one thing, seasonality is a big problem. There’s normally an employment bulge in December, as stores and others bulk up for the holiday, then a slump in January as they let the extra workers go. The BLS tries to adjust for these seasonal patterns, but because the pattern is always changing, it’s an imperfect process.

A better guide is probably to average the last 2 or 3 months. What you get then is that employment is still growing, but v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y. In particular, employment growth is well short of what’s necessary to keep up with population growth. So even though it’s premature to say that jobs are shrinking, as a practical matter this makes no difference: the truth is that the jobs picture looks moderately dire.

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