Question:
Bear with me…Jobs report came out and according to the BLS 115,000 jobs were added last month. The news headlines across most of the media read “better than expected” report.
Doing the math. 🧐
There are 349 million people in the US.
The current unemployment rate is 4.3%.
4.3% of 349 million is 15 million. (I realize there are additional details that go into the equation… but to make my point we will just go with the rough math here).
Therefore, of the 15 million unemployed, 115K found work. As a percentage this is 0.76% or less than 1%.
By ANY indication this is completely insignificant.
What is more interesting is that even if you cut the total number of unemployed by 5 million people (a monumental task), the addition of anything less than 500k jobs -still remains insignificant.
Valid question. So why does the media (regardless of left or right leaning) use headlines that spin it as being anything other than completely insignificant?
It’s as if ESPN was happy to report about a running back gaining 0.76 yards on a carry play after play!
My point here is this. By focusing on “at least it wasn’t a negative number” and spinning it as “better than expected” the American public loses sight to the fact that the ball will never get to the end zone. And the country is failing to provide an economy that produces the opportunities needed for its people to succeed.
IMO, this isn’t a left or right question. Perhaps this is a clearer indication of the fact that to the powers that be, the elites, and Wall Street, to their money and its political influence, the way money is broadly managed as it relates to its economic ability to generate employment opportunities, …is simply not a priority. It is an afterthought to factors that provide “significant” ROI to the 1%.
Answer:
The first step is to get the numbers correct. The current population of the U.S. is 342.6 million, but the civilian labor force (unemployed plus employed) is 275 million. The most common reasons for not being in the labor force are being below 16 years of age, having retired, being in the military, being institutionalized, or attending school. The number unemployed in April was 7.4 million, not 15 million.
The second step is to note that the employment increase is a net number, not a gross number. The 115,000 new jobs in April 2026 meant that there were 115,000 more people employed than in March 2026. There were many more people hired than 115,000 in April, but there were also jobs lost in April due to layoffs, quits, retirements, and other separations. The 115,000, is the total new hires minus all separations .
To make the point, I need to use March numbers because the job opening, hire, layoff and quit data for April are not yet available. Net employment grew by 178,000 in March 2026 at a time when there were 7.2 million unemployed. Using the March Job Opening and Turnover data https://www.bls.gov/jlt/ there were 6.9 million new job openings in March 2026, and so almost as many jobs created as the number unemployed. However, there were only 5.6 million new hires, and so 1.3 million jobs went unfilled. Why didn’t all 6.9 million jobs get filled by one of the 7.2 million unemployed? Because some unemployed will turn down offers in the hopes of getting a better option or they will not meet the qualifications for the jobs in their area.
Nevertheless, unless the economy is in recession, most of the unemployed in the U.S. find a job within a few months of becoming unemployed. In April, the median duration is 13 weeks, so half of the unemployed found jobs within 3 months.
