New jobs statistics wow pundits. But are they believable?
Construction crews were working at the Serramonte Shopping Center in Daly City during the coronavirus shelter in place. March 25, 2020 (Office of Dave Canepa )
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - The national jobs numbers that came out on Friday were an unexpected thunderclap to the positive side. We crunched the numbers and asked the key question: are they believable?
Creating jobs?
At best, the pundits had predicted that new U.S. jobs in March would come at a paltry 60,000 or less.
"The report came in this morning: 178,000 jobs, far, far beyond expectations," said Employment lawyer Michael Bernick of the Duane Morris Law Firm and a former Employment Development Department director. "I think the main takeaway from today's numbers is the resilience of the American economy," said Bernick.
That said, the big, but fair question hanging in midair is: can the public, business, industry and workers believe that the numbers were not tampered with? "What you can't say, is that the report, the books, the numbers are cooked," he said.
Trust in the BLS
And, why is that? "The Bureau of Labor Statistics is a highly, highly professional bureaucracy and if anything was being done was irregular, you can bet that somebody, there would be some whistle-blower," said Bernick.
Dig deeper:
The strongest gains were in healthcare and social services, both largely government got the most gains. In the private sector, leisure/hospitality and construction jobs were the big gainers.
California lagging
But California, once the juggernaut of U.S. job growth, is now the laggard.
"California's unemployment claims numbers remained far, far higher than the nation. We have about 11.3% of all the nation's jobs. Yesterday we had about 20% of all the nation's new job claims," said the former EDD Director.
But, California has been in this position before, only to come out of it stronger.
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US labor market rebounding as 178,000 jobs added in March, well above expectations
The U.S. labor market rebounded in March with employers adding 178,000 jobs, well above the 60,000 predicted by economists. The unemployment rate declined slightly to 4.3%.