I know it’s not everyone balliwick to sift through a monthy jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but I do for the same reason I watch Fox “News” or the republican National Convention:  so you don’t have to.

While 1.37 million jobs filled is a hopeful sign–particularly for those people filling those jobs–there are a number of warning signs in this report that should be recognized because they’re actually signs that the US economic situation is far more precarious than the job creation number reflects.

20% of the jobs came from the Census.  More than 340,000 of the newly-reported jobs were government hires, but 251,000 were temporary federal jobs specifically for the US Census.  The spike happens every ten years; in 2010, during the Obama administration, the hires were made in May and the jobs lasted 3-5 months.

Trump’s cavalier management of government business pushed the hiring of Census takers to August, and those jobs will likely last only one or two months because Trump already announced “door knocking” efforts will be abbreviated so his administration doesn’t actually count everyone.

It only covers half of August.  Like every jobs report released on the first Friday of the month, Friday’s release is only based on data collected during the first two weeks of August.  In normal times, that doesn’t matter much… but we aren’t in normal times.

Remember:  roughly 30 million Americans lost a $600 per week federal supplement to their weekly unemployment benefit at the end of July.  The loss of that money–which went to pay for things like groceries and other items–will have a cascading effect on the economy that will be seen after this survey was conducted.  The fallout of that lack of cash will impact the economy from late August on.

If this is a recovery, we’re in sad shape.  The US lost more than 22 million jobs in the recession that started in March; we’ve recovered less than half of them.  Just less than 30 million people are on unemployment, nearly 2,000% more than the same week in the previous year.

Having just 1.37 million jobs filled in one month–only one million of which are private sector jobs–means that it would take 28 months for the US to recover all the jobs lost in just two months, IF we maintain one million jobs filled each month, which isn’t likely.

Add to that that the number of jobs created has decreased in the last three months, from 4.7 million in June to 1.37 million in August.  That trend does not make for certain job creation in the future.

3.3 million workers are involuntary part-time workers.  Since the pandemic began, many workers saw their employers put them on part-time schedules rather than full time; since February, that number is 3.3 million more than normal.  That number has continued to gone down since June, but slowly.

There are still more than three million of these so-called “involuntary part-time workers,” who would likely reassume full-time positions in better economic conditions.  We have yet to see those conditions reappear, and the decreasing percentage of those jobs transition to full-time this month reflects a tentative view of employers.

Federal economic relief expires in September.  We’ve all seen the layoff announcements:  American Airlines letting go of 18,000 employees.  MGM also laying off 18,000.  Coca-Cola, 4,000.  That’s a sign of how week the economy is.

It’s also a sign that these companies, and many others, do not feel confident that a significant federal coronavirus relief package will be passed.  If the deal is a short-term one, as proposed by republicans, it’s simply kicking the can down the road, with September and October particularly rocky portions of it.

I’m not buying a 8.4% unemployment rate.  The weekly first-time unemployment claims report, released Thursday, noted that the percentage of workforce eligible for unemployment receiving the benefit was 9.1% (seasonally adjusted).  That’s basically the percentage of eligible unemployed people who are collecting a weekly check.

Logically, there are more people who are NOT eligible for unemployment who are currently unemployed than those receiving it, not fewer.  An announced overall unemployment rate that is lower than the percentage of the workforce getting unemployment simply doesn’t make sense.

And finally, the coronavirus is still lurking.  All of these economic factors will plummet if the US experiences another widespread wave of coronavirus infections on top of the coming flu season.  As Joe Biden says, we cannot have a solid economic recovery unless we have a solid national response to the pandemic.

Patchwork policy has led to a consistent 40,000+ new coronavirus cases reported daily, with an average of 900 deaths per day over the last two months.  That isn’t a stable base on which to rebuild an economy.