Category: employment

Good News for Me

No Comments
Click for full size

H/t Calculated Risk

It appears that there has been a surge in temporary hires, which, considering that I have been doing technical temping over the past 16 years, is a very good thing™:

A surge in temporary employment was one of the encouraging aspects of a Labor Department report issued [last] Friday. The U.S. unemployment rate dropped to 10 percent in November. Overall job losses fell to just 11,000 while temporary jobs grew by 52,000 in the fourth consecutive monthly increase in this bellwether category.

Temp help tends to lead changes in permanent employment, and I’ve noticed an uptick in submittals, despite it being the post-Thanksgiving doldrums.

Hopefully, this means that I will shortly have less time for my blog.

Reality Is a Bitch

No Comments

So, the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), the modular, whiz bank, high tech wonder that manages to cram all the weaponry of a corvette into a hull the size of a frigate*, is heading out to sea on its 1st deployment, and they had to add an additional 20 crew to the nominal compliment of 75, an increase of 27%, in order not to overwork the crew to the point of uselessness. (see also here and here):

Good said Freedom’s 20 extra sailors would sleep in two 12-rack berthing modules, about the size of shipping containers, which will ride in the ship’s multiuse mission spaces. While the 75 core crew members will stay in the ship’s integral berthing spaces — which include double-tall racks, rooms of no more than eight sailors, and a head and shower to each berthing area — the VBSS sailors’ lodging will be more like those of sailors on a destroyer, he said.

Note that these spaces will not have heads or showers, and that the multiuse mission spaces are intended for the addition of capabilities to the platform for modular upgrades.

It seems to me that we are seeing the US Navy’s fetish on getting the number of crew on ships down coming back to bite them in the ass, much as it did with the now-canceled Zumwalt class (an overview here).

In any case, this yet another example where, to paraphrase Commander Salamander, truth trumps PowerPoint slide thinking.

Not only does this show an increase in crew costs, it also reduces the “flexibility and modularity” which was supposed to be the primary justification for the program, because some of those “plug and play” spaces must now be occupied by additional crew.

These problems are in addition to the cost overruns and schedule slippage that the program is seeing, of course.

*A corvette is a lot smaller than a frigate.

Economics Update (Yeah, Way Late)

No Comments
Click for full size


Unemployment h/t Calculated Risk


Unemployment over recessions h/t Calculated Risk


Back to where we started before Congress gave the credit card companies a big wet kiss.

I think that this is the first time that I’ve tot this since Thanksgiving. Sorry, it’s been hectic.

The lede, of course, it the unemployment numbers, and we now have the official numbers for November, and they are surprisingly not bad (using the phrase “good” for double digit unemployment is an absurdity): Non Farm Payroll fell by only 11,000 in November, and the Unemployment rate fell by 0.2% to 10.0%. (The ADP prediction from earlier this week was way off)

Initial unemployment claims fell by 5K, to 457,000, with the 4-week moving average falling 14,250 to 481,250, both of which are the lowest since the 3rd quarter of last year.

On the other hand, continuing claims rose by 28K to 5.47 million, and the number of people who were collecting extended (emergency) unemployment benefits the number of people collecting extended benefits under federal programs rose by 327K to 4.53 million for the week ending November 14, when the bill that Congress passed extending benefits kicked in, so there are more people collecting benefits now than there were last week….A lot more.

Seeing as how the US Economy needs to add roughly 150,000 jobs a month just to account for a growing workforce, at best we are in a “getting crappy less quickly” stage, and at worst, it could be a dead cat bounce.

In non-employment related metrics, we have the both the ISM Non-Manufacturing Index and the ISM Manufacturing Index falling, though the latter is still indicating expansion, just very slow expansion, though the November Chicago Purchasing Managers Index rose to a 15-month high, and the Fed’s Beige Book is showing improvement.

The reason that I am not optimistic, in addition to being bearish by temperament, is because retail sales fell below estimates for the start of the holiday season, and because personal bankruptcy filings are still horrific, (see pic) they were down in November from October, but still up 12% from Year over Year.

In real estate, 30-year fixed mortgages fell.

And in the world of central banks, the European Central Bank has kept its benchmark rate at 1%, though it gave indications that it would be walking away from its quantitative easing, which drove both oil and the dollar down.

Dyeing for a Job

No Comments

OK, I’ve only had one phone interview, and no fact to face ones since I’ve noticed that I have an increasing amount of gray in my beard,* having 2 children will do that to you, and I realized that while the appearance of age associated with a white beard might interfere with my finding a new job, so I’ve died my hair.

It looks OK, and I’ll touch up as needed.

*That picture of me with the bad hair is 30 years old.

Have to Put my Resume in With These Folks

No Comments

Leeds University advertises for lap dance research officer:

The advertised position, in the School of Sociology and Social Policy, is for: “Research Officer – The rise and regulation of lap dancing and the place of sexual labour and consumption in the night time economy”.

The advertisement further stipulates that “prior experience of conducting research in the female sex industry” is essential.

Of course, if this does not appear on Letterman, Leno, or Stewart, they aren’t doing their jobs.

Needless to say, Sharon* is not amused at my suggestion that I apply for the position.

*Love of my life, light of the cosmos, she who must be obeyed, my wife.

My Congratulations to Speaker Boehner, Majority Leader McConnell, and President Palin

3 Comments

You know, we all thought that we elected FDR or JFK in 2008, but it appears that we elected Herbert Hoover instead:

This recession has taught us that we can’t return to a situation where America’s economic growth is fueled by consumers who take on more and more debt. In order to keep growing, we need to spend less, save more, and get our federal deficit under control. We also need to place a greater emphasis on exports that we can build, produce, and sell to other nations – exports that can help create new jobs at home and raise living standards throughout the world.

(emphasis mine)

Unemployment is, 10.2%, 17½% if you use U6, which the metric that most closely matches the numbers used to arrive at the 24.9% level during the Great Depression, and he thinks that it’s time to cut the deficit.

It’s the wrong prescription, and notwithstanding polls, people don’t vote on the deficit, they vote on the economy, and except for little Timmy Geithner’s friends in wall street, the economy has consistently gotten worse, and it will continue to get worse as Obama plays to Wall street, and not Main Street.

H/t the artist formerly known as Armando

Economics Update

No Comments
Click for full size


The Number Needs to be Under 400,000
H/t Calculated Risk

The Index of Leading Economic Indicators rose for the 7th straight month, indicating that a recovery is underway, as does the Philadelphia Bank of the Federal Reserve’s survey of manufacturing hitting 16.7, the highest level since June, 2007.

Unemployment though, is not cooperating, with initial unemployment claims unchanged from last week, they are still 505,000, unemployed is still on a pace to increase.

Basically, if it is above 400K, it still sucks, and this applies to the 4 week moving average too, which fell to 514,000, down 6,500

The continuing claims numbers are better, down 39,000 to 5.61 million, but still pretty grim too.

I would note that the continuing claims number does not count people who have moved to extended benefits, and that jumped 119,000 to 4.16 million.

You do the math 39,000 on the up side, 119,000 on the down side, gives us 80,000 of ugly.

In any case, concerns about continued growth, which I think were driven by the lack of improvement in first time claims, has people fleeing to safety again, with yields on 3-month Treasury Bill maturing in January going negative for the first time since December of last year, because people are willing to pay to keep their money safe for the next month or so..

Additionally, we have the Bank of Japan sending out signals that it will be keeping rates low, because it is concerned about deflation.

These concerns have driven oil down and the dollar and yen up.

This is What You Get When You Go For Bipartisanship

No Comments

Not only were there bogus tax cuts in the unemployment extension, in order to pick up a few Republican votes, it now appears that the extended benefits will expire at year’s end, because they were paying attention to the end of the year when they passed this bill just 2 weeks ago.

If the Republicans want to stop a bill like this, one that has a huge majority supporting it, they should be made to express their opposition on the floor. Spending a few months cajoling them is counter productive.

Rats Leaving a Sinking Ship

No Comments

So, you have a phony newspaper, the Moonie Washington Times, in the process of imploding (see here), and now you are seeing the people who have been kicked to the curb going after the paper.

Case in point, former Washington Times editorial editor and ” vice president of opinion” (whatever the f^%$ that is) Richard Miniter has filed a religious discrimination claim, alleging that he was “coerced” into attending a religious retreat:

The former editorial page editor of the Washington Times has filed a discrimination complaint against the paper, saying he was “coerced” into attending a Unification Church religious ceremony that culminated in a mass wedding conducted by the church’s leader, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.

Richard Miniter, who was also vice president of opinion, made the claim in a filing Tuesday with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that also disclosed he was fired last month. He said in an interview that he “was made to feel there was no choice” but to attend the ceremony if he wanted to keep his job, and that executives “gave me examples of people whose careers at the Times had grown after they converted” to the Unification Church. A Times spokesman said the paper would not comment.

The paper has been a money loser for its entire existence, with its deficits being financed through subsidies from the church, and he’s surprised that doing obeisance at Sun Myung Moon’s feet is a part of the job?

This is particularly galling for someone who was their editorial page editor, since their editorial page was arguably the worst in the nation, though, unlike the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, it does not suffer in comparison to their news gathering operation, because it is equally laughable.

It should be noted that at least a part of the right-wing nutjob community is supporting Miniter in this, as Larry Klayman, late of the whack-job Judicial Watch is his attorney, which implies that there some Scaife or Olin money behind this lawsuit.

Economics Update

No Comments
Click for full size

Unemployment, H/t Calculated Risk

Today is Jobless Thursday, and new jobless claims fell to 503,000, down from 514,000 (revised from 512K_) the lowest since January, with the 4 week moving average falling to 519,750 from last week’s 524,250, and continuing claims fell to 5.63 million.

This is good news, but we need to be down to about 400K a week to be in jobless recovery, as opposed to “job-loss recovery”, mode, (see graph pr0n, right) so there is still a way to go.

I would note that the metrics that involve moving physical objects, like port and truck traffic, and this week’s report on rail traffic from the AAR are still week. with traffic in October down 15.3% from a year ago, and down 0.3% from September.

It looks like bad news for the monoliner bond insurers is heating up, with French bond insurer CIFG is on a path to an insolvency filing.

In real estate, mortgage applications hit a 9-year low, despite the fact that the 30-year fixed mortgage fell again.

Additionally, we have dueling headlines, with CNBC saying, “Foreclosures Fall Again,” (true, though the call the improvement “fleeting”) but Bloomberg saying that, “U.S. Foreclosure Filings Surpass 300,000 for 8th Straight Month.” (also true.

Your call as to hed is the right one.

Meanwhile, there was an auction for 30 year Treasuries, and prices fell, because….Hell, I don’t know why they fell….Maybe inflation concerns, since the 3 and 10-year auctions were fairly well received.

Then we have our last bit, energy and currency, and oil fell, largely on an unexpectedly high inventory numbers, and the dollar rose, as investors looked for a safe haven.

Economics Update

No Comments
Click for full size

I’m not a gold bug, but Rolf Winkler’s graph pr0n is interesting. It could imply that gold has further up to go, or that the stock market is overvalued. Your call.

Slow news day today, with biggest news that the People’s Bank of China has modified the language it uses to describe its position on the Yuan, which implies that the currency will be allowed to appreciate over the near term.

In Australia employment increased by 24,500 in September, s not inconsiderable number for a country with a total population in the 22 million range.

Meanwhile, Japan appears to continue to be in a deflationary mode, with producer prices falling for the 10th month, down 6.7% year over year.

In currency, driven partly by the Bank of China statements, the dollar weakened to more than $1.50:€1.00, though it settled at $1.4961 when trading ended.

In either case, it appears that people are still betting on a recovering economy, as crude oil rose again today.

And for you gold bugs, as well as for the graph pr0n, gold hit a new record in trading today, $1,121.9/oz (troy).

Economics Update (a Day Late) (Again!)

No Comments
Click for full size

Ambac share prices

MBIA Share price

We are Unbelievably Screwed, H/t The Big Picture


Job Turnaround? Perhaps the End of the Beginning, but Not the Beginning of the End

For a bit of Auld Lang Syne, let’s start with an update on the monoliner insurers…I’ve posted on them just once since May.

Ambac’s share price is collapsing on reports that it will file for bankruptcy, and MBIA posted a $728 million loss, which comes to about $3.50/share, and the shares are trading at about $3.69 right now….ouch.

The monoliner business model is that you create a company, get an AAA rating, and then make money by renting out that credit rating.

Among other things, it’s a way to soften the blow of the comparatively low credit ratings that states and municipalities get, and it allows for another revenue stream for the parasites on Wall Street to tap.

I think think that the entire business is essentially corrupt, and should be outlawed.

In any case, we do have news that might be a cause for optimism, with China’s industrial output and retail sales grew sharply in October, and the US Department of Labor’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey rose slightly in both September and October.

On the down side are the continued fall in retail sales (see 3rd chart down), and the vacancy rate in housing is at a 44-year high.

The recent news does not seem to have effected the price of Treasurys, though which were basically flat.

In energy, we have weather, specifically the fact that Ida was pretty weak by the time that it hit oil producing areas, driving oil down, and China’s gangbuster economic report drove the US dollar down.

Economics Update

No Comments
Click for full size

Perspective from the Wall Street Journal:
Falling Hours & Wages Drove Productivity Numbers Up


Long Term Unemployment


Unemployment vs. the Stress Tests, H/T Calculated Risk


Employment:Population Ratio, H/t Calculated Risk


Average Weekly Hours, h/t The Big Picture

Well, I already mentioned that unemployment (U3) broke 10%, with non-farm payrolls falling by 190,000, (better than September), so the next thing is the productivity number, where, “Non-farm business sector labor productivity increased at a 9.5 percent annual rate during the third quarter of 2009.” OMFG, that is a huge number.

Normally, this would be good news, but soaring productivity means fewer workers needed for a task, so in the short term it would tend to stall any recovery in the labor markets.

On the brighter side, we are now getting reports that hiring of temporary workers are increasing, which might presage a more general hiring increase, as temps tend to be hired earlier, because they are easier to get rid of.

On the other hand, US consumer credit fell for the 8th straight month in September, which indicates that the consumer is continuing to deleverage an pay down their debts.

It appears that wholesalers are deleveraging too, as wholesale inventories fell in September, though less than anticipated, and retail sales did rise, but inventories are at an all time low, 1.18 months.

In any case, the unemployment numbers drove a flight to safety, which drove Treasuries up, and their yields down.

This flight to safety has also drive both the dollar and the Yen up, while concerns about recovery has driven oil down.

Unemployment Breaks 10 %

No Comments

Up 0.4% to 10.2%. Yeah, bailing out the banks worked so well.

BTW, U6, the most expansive measure of unemployment, hit 17.5%.

Note, however, that U6 is still more restrictive than the metric used in the Great Depression, which, for example counted WPA workers as unemployed.

It means that we are much closer to the 25% peak in the 1930’s than we would like to think.

[on edit]

Full disclosure, I am among that 10.2%

Economics Update

No Comments
Click for full size


The Defendants in the Galleon Case….So Far
Click for PDF from SEC


H/t The Bondad Blog

It’s jobless Thursday, and initial jobless were better than forecast, 512,000, down from a revised 532,000 the prior week, comparing the initial numbers from last week, it’s 512K from 530K, a still quite impressive 18,000 drop.

The 4 week moving average fell 3000, to 523,750, and the continuing claims fell to 5,749,000, down 68,000 from last week’s number 5,817,000, though the initial figure there was 5,797,000m which is a 48K drop.

We are still seeing repercussions of the the Fed’s extended zero rate interest in energy and currency, with people worrying that the run up in commodities may be coming to an end, which pushed the dollar and Yen up, and oil down.

Economics Update

No Comments
Click for full size

The Notch is the Bankruptcy law change
H/t Calculated Risk

The FOMC has met, and they are keeping their benchmark rate at essentially 0%, and they have clearly said that they will keep rates low for an extended period of time.

Meanwhile the Bank of Japan has issued a statement that its walk-back on emergency programs to bolster the credit market are not a precursor to a rate hike.

In employment, ADP’s private sector job survey reports that 203K jobs were cut in October, the smallest cut in over a year, and Challenger, Gray, & Christmas is reporting that announced that planned layoffs fell to 55,6799 in October, down 16% from September.

Meanwhile, in New Zealand, where they are supposed to be out of the recession, their jobless rate hit a 9-year high, 6½%.

Meanwhile, the Institute for Supply Management’s Non-Manufacturing survey fell to 50.6, down from September’s 50.9, but any number above 50 indicates expansion., though, as Calculated Risk notes, “the Non-Manufacturing Employment Index for October registered 41.1 percent. This reflects a decrease of 3.2 percentage points when compared to the 44.3 percent registered in September,” so the sector expanded, while employment in the sector shrank.

Still, even after the draconian legislation enacted in 2005, personal bankruptcies rose 9% in October, to a new post law change high (see graph pr0n). (American Bankruptcy Institute report)

One interesting thing on all this is that the the market is pricing in increasing inflation expectations, as indicated by the spread between Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS), and generic Treasuries. It’s at 2.08%, the highest level in over a year.

Unsurprisingly, the statement by the Fed regarding rates, juxtaposed with the increased inflation concerns, pushed Treasuries down, and hence their yields up.

The Fed’s statement pushed the dollar down, as investors looked for higher returns, though this was abated somewhat when Fitch cut Ireland’s credit rating to AA- from AA+, which put a downward pressure on the Euro.

As is customary, the falling dollar drove oil prices up, but only by about 1%, to $80.40/bbl.

Full Federal Reserve Open Market Committee statement after break.

Press Release

Release Date: November 4, 2009

For immediate release

Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in September suggests that economic activity has continued to pick up. Conditions in financial markets were roughly unchanged, on balance, over the intermeeting period. Activity in the housing sector has increased over recent months. Household spending appears to be expanding but remains constrained by ongoing job losses, sluggish income growth, lower housing wealth, and tight credit. Businesses are still cutting back on fixed investment and staffing, though at a slower pace; they continue to make progress in bringing inventory stocks into better alignment with sales. Although economic activity is likely to remain weak for a time, the Committee anticipates that policy actions to stabilize financial markets and institutions, fiscal and monetary stimulus, and market forces will support a strengthening of economic growth and a gradual return to higher levels of resource utilization in a context of price stability.

With substantial resource slack likely to continue to dampen cost pressures and with longer-term inflation expectations stable, the Committee expects that inflation will remain subdued for some time.

In these circumstances, the Federal Reserve will continue to employ a wide range of tools to promote economic recovery and to preserve price stability. The Committee will maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent and continues to anticipate that economic conditions, including low rates of resource utilization, subdued inflation trends, and stable inflation expectations, are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period. To provide support to mortgage lending and housing markets and to improve overall conditions in private credit markets, the Federal Reserve will purchase a total of $1.25 trillion of agency mortgage-backed securities and about $175 billion of agency debt. The amount of agency debt purchases, while somewhat less than the previously announced maximum of $200 billion, is consistent with the recent path of purchases and reflects the limited availability of agency debt. In order to promote a smooth transition in markets, the Committee will gradually slow the pace of its purchases of both agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities and anticipates that these transactions will be executed by the end of the first quarter of 2010. The Committee will continue to evaluate the timing and overall amounts of its purchases of securities in light of the evolving economic outlook and conditions in financial markets. The Federal Reserve is monitoring the size and composition of its balance sheet and will make adjustments to its credit and liquidity programs as warranted.

Voting for the FOMC monetary policy action were: Ben S. Bernanke, Chairman; William C. Dudley, Vice Chairman; Elizabeth A. Duke; Charles L. Evans; Donald L. Kohn; Jeffrey M. Lacker; Dennis P. Lockhart; Daniel K. Tarullo; Kevin M. Warsh; and Janet L. Yellen.