Fema Employment

Does WSJ mean there are only 6 million employment ppl in the states?

I read below words on today's WSJ.com. The rise in the jobless rate to 5% from 4.7% in November -- and an increase of only 18,000 in nonfarm jobs, the worst performance in four years -- adds pressure on the Federal Reserve to swallow its concerns about inflation and cut interest rates more steeply later this month. If 18,000 jobs account for 0.3% of employment market,does this mean the whole market only provides 6 million jobs? Someone pls reason this to me. Thanks.

Public Comments

1. Nonfarm jobs can mean anything from Ranch jobs to tech jobs and more. Please reference your query.
2. That's a good question, but it's a bit weird how these things are reported. The answer to your question is that the unemployment rate is NOT directly connected to the number of "nonfarm payroll jobs", so you cannot apply the arithmetic that you did, even though on the face of it that might seem to make sense. The Bureau of Labor Statistics uses two entirely different approaches to analyze unemployment. In one approach, it collects data from corporations. In another approach it calls up some 30,000 households (I think that's the #) in a huge random sample, asking them if they are working or unemployed. The corporate data gives them the "nonfarm payrolls" new jobs; and then household survey gives them an estimate of the number of people 1) in the labor force, 2) employed, 3) not employed -- from which they calculate unemployment rate. Then they report their monthly findings all together in a news release, which sources like WSJ report on. You can see the current release in the link below. The current number of total jobs now is 146.2 million; the total number of unemployed people is 7.655 million.