2019 ROI First Quarter Edition 2019 - HIS Capital Group | Page 15

The month-over-month jobs picture is also amazingly strong. Overall employment growth came in at +196k in
March – reasonably strong, but not overbearing. The +196k was a welcomed improvement from February’s 33k.
In breaking down the top-line jobs figure to full-time and part-time jobs, in March the BLS figures were
surprisingly weak for full-time employment at 7k. Part-time employment growth accounted for 189k of the 196k
job growth figure. In February, the ratio was flipped, with an 870k gain in full-time employment and an 837k loss
in part-time employment.
Overall, if there’s anything that’s on fairly strong footing, it’s the American labor market.
The Unemployment Rate and the Labor Force Participation rates confirm the labor market picture. The Labor
Force Participation rate now above 63%, which is a bump up from its low of 62.4% five years ago. It certainly
appears that the drop in labor force participation has bottomed-out, another signal that workers have some
interest in working again.
Shifting to the Unemployment Rate, the rate is now at 4.0%. This is incredibly good, but not “too” low. Given the
way the Unemployment Rate is measured, it’s possible that a 4% Unemployment Rate is not “full employment.”
Perhaps the largest reason why 4% may not be the full employment figure is one big change in the makeup of
the American labor market – freelancers. Recent estimates of the size of the American freelance labor market
may be as high as 80 million. That’s massive, more than half of the labor force. The freelance workforce means
that workers are “working” but may be far from fully employed.
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