Your Week in ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Last week's initial unemployment claims was unchanged at a relatively low 217,000, and continuing claims remained basically flat at 1.9 million, the real action was in the monthly jobs report, where the unemployment rate rose by 0.2% to 3.9%, largely on the basis of increasing entrants into the labor force.

Discouraged, and possibly disabled, workers have reentered the work force:

The US employment rate climbed to a two-year high in February. It’s a setback for those who lost their jobs, but it hardly signaled doom and gloom in the labor market.

To be considered unemployed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a person has to be actively trying to find work — otherwise they’re not part of the labor force at all. Last month, there was a big jump in people coming off the sideline to join the workforce — both for the first time and those trying again — helping boost the jobless rate to 3.9%, the highest since January 2022.

Combined with still-healthy job creation and moderating wage gains, the figures illustrate the type of softening in the job market that the Federal Reserve wants to see. More people looking for work should help alleviate labor shortages and therefore inflation, even though it’s taking a bit longer for them to become employed.

The jobs report is composed of two surveys — one of businesses, which produces the payrolls and wage data, plus a smaller poll of households that determines the unemployment figures. While the headline payrolls figure rose by 275,000 in data published Friday, the household survey showed a third-straight drop in employment, which was almost entirely concentrated among younger Americans.

I have no clue what this all means.