Thursday, September 06, 2012

Today's Employment Reports

1. Global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas announced today that:

"Employers announced plans to shed 32,239 workers from their payrolls in August. It was the fewest number of monthly job cuts by US-based firms since December 2010, when layoffs totaled 32,004.& August job cuts were down 12.5% from a July total of 36,855, making it the third consecutive decline in monthly job cuts. Last month was 37% lower than August 2011, when employers announced plans to eliminate 51,114 positions from their ranks."

2.  From today's ADP National Employment Report:

"Employment in the U.S. nonfarm private business sector increased by 201,000 from July to August, on a seasonally adjusted basis. The estimated gain from June to July was revised up from the initial estimate of 163,000 to 173,000. Employment in the private, service-providing sector expanded 185,000 in August, up from 156,000 in July. Employment in the private, goods-producing sector added 16,000 jobs in August. Manufacturing employment rose 3,000, following an increase of 6,000 in July."

MP: Over the last 12 months, the U.S. economy has gained 2.14 million private jobs according to ADP, which is the largest one-year increase in jobs since early 2006, more than six years ago.  While those jobs gains are promising, it will take two more years of gains at that pace to replace all of the jobs lost during the recession - private ADP payroll employment is still about 4 million jobs below early 2008 levels.    

12 Comments:

At 9/06/2012 8:15 AM, Blogger Jon Murphy said...

While those jobs gains are promising, it will take two more years of gains at that pace to replace all of the jobs lost during the recession - private ADP payroll employment is still about 4 million jobs below early 2008 levels.

At least we are on the path!

 
At 9/06/2012 8:19 AM, Blogger VangelV said...

The reports clearly show that the recovery is extremely slow and probably unsustainable. After zero interest rates and massive amounts of deficit spending we still see far fewer people employed than before the contraction began around four years ago. Once the election is over many jobs created because of all of the political activity that goes with the election disappears and when the election year stimulus goes away further jobs will go away.

The number I looked at was the 3,000 job increase in manufacturing. If further data points show similar results the US economy could be due for a hard landing soon.

 
At 9/06/2012 8:29 AM, Blogger Jon Murphy said...

US economy could be due for a hard landing soon.

I thought the economy was in a hard landing now? Isn;t that what you've been saying much of the past year? We're currently in a recession despite all the evidence that says contrary because it is manipulated by the government?

 
At 9/06/2012 10:44 AM, Blogger Jon Murphy said...

As good as these numbers do look, I want to wait for the Census numbers to come out (the reason for this is simple: they are NSA and part of my dataset).

I have nothing against ADP, but rather seasonally adjusted numbers.

By the way, since I know this will happen tomorrow: The actual NSA employment number in August will drop. This is seasonally normal (historically, employment from July to August typically drops between .2-.5%).

 
At 9/06/2012 5:06 PM, Blogger juandos said...

"At least we are on the path!"...

We are?!?!

Well it will be interesting to hear what the Oracle of TOTUS has to say...

 
At 9/06/2012 6:07 PM, Blogger bart said...

I expect U3 to come in "surprisingly" low at 8.15%.

 
At 9/06/2012 10:04 PM, Blogger VangelV said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

 
At 9/07/2012 7:43 AM, Blogger bart said...


bart: I expect U3 to come in "surprisingly" low at 8.15%.

VangelV:
I suspect that all the jobs created by the election cycle are not being seasonally adjusted.


Happy days are here again.

 
At 9/07/2012 9:06 AM, Blogger morganovich said...

bart-

well, there you go. a drop in u3 driven mostly by folks leaving the labor force.

in addition, yet again we get big downward adjustments on payrolls for the last 2 months.

this has become so common that it raises questions about the initial methodology. if it is literally ALWAYS wrong to the upside, perhaps it needs to be changed.

we also hit a labor force participation rate lower than anyhting since 1981.

if we were at a more typical 66%, we'd have a u-3 reading over 10%.

these numbers are a bit of a sobering counterpoint to adp.

 
At 9/07/2012 9:09 AM, Blogger VangelV said...

this has become so common that it raises questions about the initial methodology. if it is literally ALWAYS wrong to the upside, perhaps it needs to be changed.

Why change something that works as designed? People are under the mistaken impression that the reports are supposed to reflect reality. They aren't. Their function is to permit bureaucrats to 'guide' perceptions of reality and help get politicians reelected.

 
At 9/07/2012 9:25 AM, Blogger Jon Murphy said...

Hm, certainly not a terrible jobs report.

The monthly decline in total payrolls (NSA) was within historical parameters. August employment was 1.6% above the same time last year, the 24th consecutive month of year-over-year gains.

On an annual basis (to adjust for seasonality), employment rose to a 35 month high, a gain of 1.5% over the past year. Incidentally, the 1.5% annual gain is the fastest rate of rise in 58 months.

The private sector fared even better. In something that is rather unusual, total private sector employment rose in August (as I said yesterday, employment tends to fall in August). In fact, this was the strongest August for the private sector since 2005. The number of folks employed in the private sector in August was the single highest total in 44 months and 1.8% above last August.

On an annual basis, private sector employment reached a 3-year high. The annual rate of rise was 1.9%, the fastest pace in 60 months.

Given the fact that the private sector on net added jobs this month, then the public sector must have, on net, shed jobs this month. The decline in the total August number, then, is not indicative of weakness in the private sector economy, but rather suggests ongoing budget tightening in the political arena.

Interesting.

 
At 9/07/2012 10:03 AM, Blogger bart said...

morganovich said...

if we were at a more typical 66%, we'd have a u-3 reading over 10%.


U3, using 66.5% particppation rate


U6, using 66.5% particppation rate

 

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