As another month passes, the great schism inside the American labor force get wider. We are referring to the unprecedented divergence between the total number of high-paying manufacturing jobs, and minimum-wage food service and drinking places jobs, aka waiters and bartenders. In August, according to the BLS, while the number of people employed by “food services and drinking places” rose by another 34,000, the US workforce lost another 14,000 manufacturing workers.
The chart below puts this in context: since 2014, the US had added 523,000 waiters and bartenders, and has lost 13,000 manufacturing workers.
While we would be the first to congraulte the new American waiter and bartender class, something does not smell quite right. On one hand, there has been a spike in recent restaurant bankruptcies or mass closures (Logan’s, Fox and Hound, Bob Evans), which has failed to reflect in the government report. However, what we find more suspect, is that according to the BLS’ seasonally adjusted “data”, starting in March of 2010 and continuing through August of 2016, there has been just one month in which restaurant workers lost jobs, and alternatively, jobs for waiters and bartenders have increased in 77 out of the past 78 months.
We are curious what this “data” series will look like after it is revised by the BLS shortly after the NBER declares the official start of the next recession.
The post Since 2014 The US Has Added 520,000 Waiters And Bartenders And Lost 13,000 Manufacturing Workers appeared first on crude-oil.top.