Each jobs report matters, and next month is going to be crucial in determining the trend.
06.03.2026 14:48
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Each jobs report matters, and next month is going to be crucial in determining the trend.
My always watch measures: long term unemp & Black unemp are still in distress. 1 in 4 of the unemployed have been so for more than 6 months. Black unemp is up to 7.7 (double white unemp). And Black unemployment has always been a harbinger of things to come for other types of workers, so look out.
When the only labor market growth is in healthcare, and then those workers go on strike, this is what you get. You can’t have an entire labor market that only grows in one sector and thinks it's resilient!
And we can see it now more sharply - job growth has averaged less than 10k for the past 3 months, and has basically stopped (less than 15K) in the past 12 months.
Never base the entire economic outlook on one report, but this is *not* great. For months, we have been holding our breath watching the labor market get weaker and weaker. It may finally be beginning to break. #jobsday
Great thread.
So, to sum up, measures of underemp & Black unemp were still flashing danger, at the end of the (meh labor market) year & should be watched in 2026. Workers at the margins - people of color, involuntary part time, discouraged-are the groups who feel a downturn first, feel it longest, & recover last.
Black unemp went down to 7.5% in Dec from 8.3 in Nov. BUT!
- that measure is volatile, so a single month means less than the trend
- Black unemp has been 📈 all year
- it's still nearly *double* the unemp rate for white workers (3.9)
- if the overall UR was 7.5 it would be a national emergency
Of those unemployment, *one in four* has been unemployed for at least 6 months! This is the highest level of long term unemployment since Feb 2022.
I mean. This is the underemployment story. Involuntary part-time is up over a million from a year ago. It had a slight rebound in December, but that could very well be due to the holiday season.
Yesterday I flagged that I'd be watching measure of underemployment and Black unemployment to indicator underlying weakness that may not show up in the topline numbers. So, let's see.
Already so what do we got? A weak jobs report for december to cap off a weak year of labor market data. Job growth came in at 50k, lower than expectations, with downward revisions for the part 2 months, and the unemployment rate is at 4.4. #EconSky
In my first piece as a @groundwork.bsky.social fellow, I’m previewing #JobsDay. Underemployment and Black unemployment are on the rise, & that usually means a labor market slowdown is coming for the economy overall.
groundworkcollaborative.org/news/are-can...
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When the whole time we also could have been saying :
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