The December 2014 Payroll
Jobs Report
By Paul Craig Roberts
January 10, 2015 "ICH"
- January 9. The Bureau of Labor
Statistics reports that a quarter of a
million new jobs were created in December.
The reported new jobs are
concentrated in construction (48,000),
professional and business services (52,000),
health care and social assistance (43,700),
and waitresses and bartenders (43,600) .
The construction jobs are
in heavy and civil engineering construction
and specialty trade contractors.
The personal and business
services jobs are primarily administrative
and waste services, about half of which are
temporary help services.
Ambulatory health care and
nursing and residential care account for
half of the health care and social
assistance jobs.
There are 43,600 new jobs
in food services and drinking places.
Durable goods
manufacturing provided 13,000 jobs. The
largest component is fabricated metal
products (4,600 jobs). Manufacturing of
computer and electronic products provided
400 jobs.
In December the economy
hired 500 more people in legal services,
lost 14,100 jobs in accounting and
bookkeeping, created 5,100 jobs in
architectural and engineering services,
9,000 jobs in computer systems design and
related services, and hired 3,800 managers.
December is the Christmas
shopping season. According to the payroll
jobs report, retail department stores only
created 600 jobs in December. Furniture and
home furnishings stores lost 3,600 jobs;
electronics and appliance stores lost 700
jobs; clothing and clothing accessories
stores lost 8,900 jobs, and health and
personal care stores lost 4,900 jobs.
According to the current
issue of Money magazine, the average
deductible for single health care coverage
has risen from $584 in 2006 to $1,217 in
2014.
I do not believe that the
economy created 252,000 jobs in December.
Nevertheless, the location of the jobs is
instructive. The New Economy’s superior jobs
that Globalism was supposed to deliver to
the US work force were a fiction. Middle
class American manufacturing and tradable
professional skills jobs were sent offshore.
The ladders of upward mobility were taken
down, and the majority of the population
faces a dismal economic outlook.
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was
Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for
Economic Policy and associate editor of the
Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for
Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service,
and Creators Syndicate. He has had many
university appointments. His internet
columns have attracted a worldwide
following. Roberts' latest books are
The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and
Economic Dissolution of the West and
How America Was Lost.
