Editor’s Note: This piece originally appeared at Zerohedge. We reprint in part here.
Traditionally, when it comes to job numbers reported by the BLS’s Establishment (the source of the monthly non-farm payrolls change) and Household (the source of the monthly unemployment rate data) surveys, there is a substantial discrepancy. However, in May’s far stronger than expected report, the two for the first time were almost identical: the Establishment Survey reported an increase of 280K jobs, while according to the Household survey 272K jobs were added.
Impressive numbers in a month in which only 215K jobs were expected to be added.
There were the usual kinks, of course. Two thirds of all jobs, according to the Establishment survey, were low-paying, low-quality jobs, primarily teachers, retail, temp help and waiters (something even CNBC has been forced to acknowledge):
This has been the case throughout the recovery, and helps explain why while wage growth while barely rising for all workers, remains depressed and even negative inr eal terms for production and non-supervisory workers, which account for 83% of all US employment.
There were other curiosities: the vast majority of jobs added in May, over 200K, were in the 20-24 age group, and the number of self-employed workers mysteriously soared by 350K to 10 million.
But the biggest surprise came from Table 7, where the BLS reveals the number of “foreign born workers” used in the Household survey. In May, this number increased to 25.098 million, the second highest in history, a monthly jump of 279K.
Assuming, the Household and Establishment surveys were congruent, this would mean that there was just 1K native-born workers added in May of the total 280K jobs added.
Alternatively, assuming the series, which is not seasonally adjusted, was indicative of seasonally adjusted data, then the 272K increase in total Household Survey civilian employment in May would imply a decline of 7K native-born workers offset by the increase of 279K “foreign borns.”
But while all of these comparisons are apples to oranges, using the BLS’ own Native-Born series, also presented on an unadjusted basis, we find the following stunner: since the start of the Second Great Depression, the US has added 2.3 million “foreign-born” workers, offset by just 727K “native-born”.
This means that the “recovery” has almost entirely benefited foreign-born workers, to the tune of 3 to 1 relative to native-born Americans!
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