Here we go again? Worries about yet another spring slowdown are likely to proliferate as payrolls climbed just 88,000 in March. The unemployment rate declined slightly to 7.6 per cent, and there were also upward revisions to the prior two months.
From the report: Read more
The common retort to a reduction in the US unemployment rate, such as last week’s, goes something like, “Yes, but that doesn’t really capture the underemployment. What about all the part-timers?!” But, as ever, it comes down to how ‘part-time’ is defined. Comparing Bureau of Labor Statistics data with OECD data indicates that US underemployment is not as severe as the headline figures suggest. Read more
CreditSights has updated its sector-specific chart to reflect this morning’s payrolls report, and you can see that construction and manufacturing employment continue to be well below their pre-recession levels, while education & health are well above and kept climbing in August. Read more
A few points as we come across them:
– In the household survey, the total number of employed people actually fell by 195,000. As the release notes: Read more
The attack diagram is shown in Figure 2. The diagram shows the various high-level attack paths an adversary might use to achieve the nightmare consequences. The adversary is assumed to be an external attacker (non-insider) for all the attacks considered in this assessment (as per the red team constraints and ROE)…
Consensus had been 150k. A big revision downward in April’s figure of 115,000 too:
The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for March was revised from +154,000 to +143,000, and the change for April was revised from +115,000 to +77,000. Read more
Consensus had been 160k. Unemployment rate came in at 8.1 per cent. March payrolls revised up from 120k to 154k though, and February up from 240k to 259k.
Full Bureau of Labour Statistics release below… Read more
Just one month, lots of statistical noise in this series, will be revised later, etc…
Caveats aside, the headline payroll number of 120,000 jobs in March is obviously a disappointment. The unemployment rate dropped a tenth of a percentage point to 8.2 per cent. Read more
By Cardiff Garcia and Joseph Cotterill
Uncaptured seasonality effects or not, this is what a healthy employment report looks like. Read more
Consensus expectations were for a rise of 150,000 jobs in December.
At first glance it looks like a good report. The fall in the unemployment rate was driven more by a rise in employment than by another big fall in the labour force. And the broader U-6 measure fell from 15.6 per cent to 15.2 per cent. Read more
US non-farm payrolls probably rose by 155,000 in December, according to the consensus of economists polled by Bloomberg. Savvy payrolls followers will also be watching the revision to the previous month’s numbers as well, which is likely to be upward, Reuters says. Economists have puzzled over a consistent pattern of revisions since 2009, implying that statistical errors or failures to collect data on time have caused the economy to look weaker than it is. The ADP report and initial jobless claims this week have meanwhile generated optimism that December payrolls will surge, the WSJ says. Read more
Every time there’s an ADP employment report that runs away from consensus expectations, the masses start bickering about whether it’s a helpful predictor of the next BLS payrolls report.
The obvious response is that ADP mirrors payrolls fairly closely over long stretches of time, but in a given month anything can happen. Read more
… and unemployment rises to 9.2 per cent.
A disastrous report, with not a single piece of good news that we can discern. To wit: Read more
Cue a big collective “ouch”.
The consensus was for a reading of around 150,000, following a dire week of US data releases. The unemployment rate is now at 9.1 per cent. Estimates for the last two months were also revised down: for March from +221,000 to +194,000 and for April from +244,000 to +232,000. Read more
US nonfarm payroll growth likely slowed to 150,000 last month after April’s 244,000 readout, according to Reuters’ survey of economists. Bloomberg’s survey forecasts 165,000. Growth at this rate would indicate that US employment is making its smallest gains since the beginning of 2011, as high commodity prices and disruptions from Japan’s earthquake lead companies to cut back on labour costs. Wall Street estimates for May payrolls range from 100,000 (Citigroup, Goldman) to 175,000 (JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley). Read more
by John McDermott and Cardiff Garcia
A risk-off day if ever there was one. Read more
Need a silver lining or a “Yeah, but” to the disastrous ADP private employment numbers from this morning?
This, via RQD Economics, is all we could find: Read more
For the commute home, or while rocking out to Paradise City, or while shielding yourself from the November Rain, or while chasing your Rocket Queen, or while exercising Patience; and because you Don’t Cry, you Live and Let Die,
- Welcome to the jungle: Ex-G’N’R bassist starts wealth management firm. Read more
We’ll continue to have updates as we make our way through the report, so keep checking back:
1) At a glance, a decent report, very close to expectations, and after upward revisions to December and January (each by close 30,000), here is what payrolls look like for the last six months: Read more
We’ll keep updating this post with analysis as we make our way through it, but for now here’s the link and an excerpt from the report itself is below.
Updates: Read more
Inflation, not Egypt, was the key concern in markets on Wednesday, as stocks took a breather from climbing to new highs while Treasuries and oil continued to push higher, reports the FT’s global market overview. The market focus, however, was already turning to Friday’s non-farm payrolls report, arguably the most eagerly awaited and hard-to-predict number of any month. On Wednesday, bulls took heart from the ADP employment survey, which showed 187,000 workers were added to payrolls last month – above expectations. That economic rebound, plus the continuing rise of oil – Brent crude saw a new 28-month high on Wednesday, above $102 a barrel once again, and copper tested $10,000 a tonne – is clearly causing a rise in traders’ fears of inflationary pressures. US Treasury bonds neared the top of their recent trading range, with 10-year notes adding 6 basis points to 3.495 per cent. Traders have been focused on the 3.50 per cent mark as potential break-out toward much higher rates. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 was down 0.3 per cent at 1,304.03, though the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up fractionally at 12,041.97 as traders continued a shift into larger companies whose dividends and steadier growth are reassuring as the economy enters unknown territory. Read more
Let’s jump right in:
1. To dispense with the obvious, the headline number of 103,000 new jobs fell a good deal short of the roughly 150,000 expected. Including subsequent revisions, this is what the payroll changes in the last six months look like: Read more
Another day then and another round of jobs numbers to put the cautiously into cautiously optimistic.
Payrolls are out Friday and with them a better idea of the extent and pace of improvement — Reuters reports that nonfarm payrolls are expected to have increased 175,000 last month, up from 39,000 in November. Read more
It’s been nearly a week since the atrocious payroll report for November seemingly put a halt to what was starting to look like a nascent jobs growth recovery. The report was especially surprising as it defied favorable economic indicators released in the preceding weeks.
But since then, we’ve seen a steady accumulation of observations and data releases suggesting that the outlook for jobs growth is (somewhat) better than the report indicated. Let’s have a look: Read more
The tax cut package is proving stimulative already – at least in terms of encouraging debate in the wonkosphere.
We continue to share the unoriginal view that extending the tax cuts for those earning above $250k will not provide the best bang to buck ratio. (And, yes, we accept that there are other reasons why you might want to offer tax cuts.) Read more
We don’t do listicles here very often, but the format seems appropriate for chopping up Friday’s payroll report — given how much data there is to chew on.
So… Read more
As if we hadn’t already rained on the expectations-beating parade of recent economic news, along comes this new chart from the Conference Board:
This is a Vulcan death grip:
As usual AV readers did a good job of teasing out some of the nuances in Friday’s payroll report, and for more analytical heavy lifting we are outsourcing to Calculated Risk:
The underlying details of the employment report were mixed. The positives: the upward revisions to the June and July reports, a slight increase in hours worked for manufacturing employees (flat for all employees), an increase in hourly wages, and the decrease in the long term unemployed. Other positives include the slight increase in the employment-population ratio and the participation rate. Read more
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