The January jobs report is out, and there were 243000 net jobs created, and the unemployment rate fell from 8.5% to 8.3%.
This is good news. If we have about 6 years of this, and we’ll have recovered.
Category: Recession
It’s Jobless Thursday
Initial claims fell to 367000, with the 4-week moving average, and continuing claims falling as as well, though emergency/extended claims rose.
Good news, and we’ll get the non-farm payroll numbers tomorrow.
Marketplace Gets It Wrong
I was listening to marketplace, and they noted the good news that incomes rose in December rose at the fastest rate in months, and that people saved more too.
They said that this is good, but what it really means is that consumer spending fell in December:
U.S. consumer spending was flat in December as households put the largest rise in income in nine months into their savings, potentially signaling slower consumption early in 2012.
It was the weakest reading on spending since June, the Commerce Department said on Monday, and it followed two tepid gains in October and November.
Still, economists were cautiously optimistic that rising wages as labor markets improve will keep demand supported.
“I do believe there is some underlying trend that gives us some reason to feel a little bit better about what lies ahead regarding spending, and the main reason is the labor market,” said Anthony Karydakis, chief economist at Commerzbank in New York.
U.S. economic growth quickened in the fourth quarter and hiring picked up, but activity is expected to soften early this year. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said last week that the central bank was considering a further easing of monetary policy to support growth.
Reuters gets it. This is not good news.
This is deleveraging in a depressed economy.
Your Economic Data Points of the Week
The GDP numbers came out, and the word is “meh”, with the economy growing at a 2.8% annual rate in the 4th quarter, under performing the forecast of 3%, and giving a 1.7% increase for the year.
We need to top 3% for a while to really improve our situation.
Yesterday,initial unemployment claims rose, to 377,000, as did continuing claims, though the 4-week moving average, and extended claims fell.
That being said, Consumer sentiment rose in January, which is good news.
It’s Jobless Thursday
Initial claims just rose to 399,000, up 24K from last weeks “already revised upward” number, basically the dividing line (rule of thumb 400K) between getting worse, and not getting worse, with the less volatile 4-week moving average rising by 7,750 to 381,750, with continuing claims rising as well, though emergency claims fell.
One step forward, one step back.
The New Beige Book is Out
It’s showing some improvement, but nothing to crow about, the quote, “expanded at a modest to moderate pace,” is a pretty good description.
The improvement is pretty modest, but it’s in eleven of the twelve Fed Banks’ regions.
The Non-Farm Payroll Numbers Are Out
And the numbers are good in an anemic sort of way, with unemployment (U-3) falling from 8.7% to 8.3%, and non-farm payrolls rising by 200K.
So how good is this?
Not very good, according to the Shrill One:
First, note that there are still about 6 million fewer jobs than there were at the end of 2007 — and that we would normally have expected to have added around 5 million jobs over a four-year period. So we’re 11 million jobs down — and we need at least 100,000 jobs a month just to keep up with working-age population growth. Do the math, and you’ll see that it would take 9 or 10 years of growth at this rate to restore full employment.
Alternatively, note that during the Clinton years — all 8 of them — the economy added around 230,000 jobs a month. As it did that, the unemployment rate fell about 3 1/2 percentage points — which is about what we’d need from here to get back to something that felt like full employment. Again, this suggests that we’re looking at something like a decade-long haul to have full recovery.
Not good enough.
It’s Jobless Thursday
Pretty good news today, with initial unemployment claims falling to 372K, a drop of 15,000, from last weeks (adjusted upward) claims, with the 4-week moving average falling to the lowest number since July 2008 (!), 373,250, with continuing claims falling, though emergency claims rose slightly.
Additionally, the ADP survey, (same link) indicates a 325,000 increase in private sector jobs, though I’ll wait for tomorrow’s NFP numbers for the official word.
We also saw the ISM’s manufacturing index grew strongly and the non-manufacturing index rose modestly.
All in all, it’s pretty good news, I’m just wondering how much government jobs have hemorrhaged over the past month.
Well, At Least It’s Still Below 400,000
Still, initial unemployment claims rising by 15K to 383,000 is still not good news.
The 4-week moving average fell, but continuing claims rose, though emergency claims fell.
I’ll wait until we are out of the holiday season before drawing any conclusions.
It’s Jobless Thursday
And, once again, we are seeing some pretty good news, with initial claims falling slightly again, with the 4-week moving average, continuing claims, and extended claims falling as well.
It’s good news.
It’s time to look at the employment/population ratio now.
OK, this has Been a Good Week for Economic News
Yesterday, we saw the best number for initial jobless claims in 3½ years, dropping to 366,000, with the 4-week moving average dropping to 387,750, though continuing claims rose marginally, and extended claims jumped by almost 10%.
Still, overall, this is good news, particularly when juxtaposed with the fact that inflation is still nowhere to be seen, though the “very serious” central bankers are still chasing that phantom.
It’s Jobless Thursday
And the news is actually pretty good, with initial claims falling to the lowest level since February, 381,000, with the less volatile 4-week moving average falling to 393,250, and the continuing and extended claims fell as well.
Definitely good news. If we maintain this for the next 4 weeks or so, I’ll believe that this is neither an outlier or an artifact of misused correction factors.
.
Yeah, I’m a glass half full kind of guy
Your Economic Data Points of the Week
And at first glance, they look pretty good on balance with the unemployment rate (U-3) falling below 9% for the first time since this March. (The more broadly defined U-6 fell as well)
Of course, the falling unemployment rate was largely the result of a decline in people looking for jobs, the increase in the non-farm payroll of 120K is less than the (roughly) 175K increase needed to accommodate natural growth in the labor force. (Private payrolls were pretty good, but state and local payrolls continue to hemorrhage)
I would still say that this more good than bad news, as are the latest ISM factory numbers, which point to continued growth.
On the other hand yesterday’s initial unemployment claims were back over 400,000.
It’s better, but we are still firmly in lost decade territory.
This is Odd
Well, the last thing didn’t work out, so I am looking for a job.
Basically, one of the rules of thumb is that November and December are pretty dead, particularly after Thanksgiving.
I’m not sure why, but since the first week of November, things, at least those things that are presented to me by recruiters, are on a fairly sharp upswing.
I’m not sure why this is so, and it could be that my experience is an outlier.
Not Enough, But a Step in the Right Direction
The European Central Bank, in the first meeting since Mario Draghi replaced the clueless Jean-Claude Trichet as president, the ECB has chosen to cut rates.
Seeing as how the whole world, and in particularly the increasingly desperate cluster f%$# that is the Euro Zone, are in the the midst of a liquidity crisis/debt overhang where cheap money won’t do much.
That being said, the fact that Draghi did not wait a few months in order to save face for the ECB, and that he’s actually warning of an upcoming recession indicates that he is a bit more of a “reality based” than your typical central banker, who typically only give a sh%$ about inflation.
It should be noted that this is actually a significant departure from prior ECB policy, because Draghi appears to be sending a message that he will, at least temporarily ignoring the (under the current circumstances absolutely absurd) 2% inflation target.
It’s Jobless Thursday
And initial claims are below 400,000 for the first time in over a month, with the less volatile 4-week moving average falling slightly from 406,500 to 404,500, continuing claims falling by 15K to 3.68M, but extended and emergency claims rose by 39.9K to 3.68M.
The number is still too damn high. This is still too high to presage any sort recovery in the job market.
Tomorrow’s monthly jobless figures from the DoL should give us some more detail.
It’s Jobless Thursday
And initial claims are again just marginally better, 404,000 down from last week’s adjusted 409,000, which is still too damn high.
Actually, it’s worse than it sounds, because they adjusted last week’s numbers were adjusted up from 405,000, (isn’t it always the way?) so it’s really a negligible drop.
What’s more, continuing claims rose, though emergency claims fell, probably as people hit 99 weeks.
We are not anywhere near a recovery.
It’s Jobless Thursday
And the initial claims numbers are basically flat, which is still too high for a meaningful recovery, with the 4-weeking moving average and continuing claims numbers falling slightly, but extended and emergency claims rose.
When juxtaposed with the non-farm payroll numbers for September being over 100,000 less than is needed to accommodate natural growth in the labor force, this is not good news.
It’s Jobless Thursday
And initial claims are back above 400,000, with the 4-week moving average rising, though continuing and extended claims fell.
Recovery my ass.
It’s Jobless Thursday
And while initial claims fell a bit, with the 4-week moving average rising, and continuing and extended claims both falling.
Still it’s 423,000 which is far short of a recovery.
On the other side, you have the Leading Economic Indicators beating estimates, but a lot of that was driven by an increase in the money supply as investors moved to (safer) cash from other less liquid investments.
Not only do I expect unemployment to remain above 9% for the foreseeable future, I expect it to top 10% again at some point in 2012.