Nice Work, If You Can Get It

ZeroHedge calls it "age outsourcing":

[click here to enlarge]

The headline number from the Bureau of Labor Statistics this morning was 146,000 nonfarm payrolls added in the U.S. during November.  At least that is what the "seasonally adjusted" Establishment Survey says.  The companion Household Survey tells a different story:  130,000 non-ag jobs lost (Table A-8).  Which to believe?

Play with the numbers all you want, but the unspun facts are these.  First, the job mix is shifting to more part-time work without benefits; looking at the "not seasonally adjusted" data in the Household Survey, Lee Adler at the Wall Street Examiner found that over 500,000 full-time jobs were lost in November.  Second, new hires are mostly older folks whose retirement savings have shriveled faster than their skin (see chart above).  The number of jobs going to those between the ages of 25 and 54 (inclusive) has declined to roughly 94 million, a level first reached by that cohort in 1997.  That means zero employment growth for prime-time earners despite an overall increase in the total U.S. population of nearly 15 percent in the past 15 years.

In the last five years, the U.S. economy has lost 4.4 million jobs.  During the same period, the number of sidelined workers collecting Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) has increased by 1.7 million.  The number of food-stamp recipients has increased by over 20 million.  [More from ZeroHedge.]