The BLS reported what was on the surface another lackluster payroll report. All the headline numbers conformed to the slowed economy view of 2016. The Establishment Survey gained just 156k in December, following an upward revised 204k in November. The 6-month average, a far more appropriate interpretation given inherent statistical volatility month to month, is just 189k. The Household Survey [...]
The JOLTS survey continues to show a lack of acceleration in the labor market. Even previously robust Job Openings estimates have plateaued. After surging throughout 2014 and into the middle of 2015, the level of estimated job openings has been more or less the same since. That might indicate the labor market reaching saturation, or it might suggest, as all [...]
According to the BLS’s latest figures, real hourly compensation increased 2.2% Q/Q (annualized rate) in Q3. Wages and earnings are being closely watched, of course, for signs of acceleration due to the so far ethereal full employment level. That idea is taken from the unemployment rate even though, as in November, it has been as much determined by the lack [...]
Last summer was perhaps the most pivotal period of the past two years for the economy in a number of ways. It was that moment stuck in between what was supposed to be, even if acceleration and liftoff were delayed by the “rising dollar” of late 2014, and, of course, what has become accepted that it never will. Less than [...]
The headline writers for this morning’s payroll reports can’t really help themselves. In a clickbait world, any kind of record or new high or low is bound to make its way into every article title. The unemployment rate fell to 4.6% in November, the lowest since 2007, therefore it isn’t surprising to see reporting on the labor statistics to have [...]
I think it necessary to qualify and clarify the conventional stance on the unemployment rate. In the mainstream, as noted yesterday, it has been something of an absolute. The lower it goes the more provocative the rhetoric on the positive side. After all, an economy at full employment cannot possibly be unhealthy, can it? That has been the great dividing [...]
The BLS reported that the rate of hiring in the US continues to be sluggish and sideways. Total hiring across the labor market was estimated to be 5.08 million (SA) in September, down from August and the second slowest rate this year. Since first surpassing 5 million back in September 2014, the overall pace of employer engagement has been largely [...]
The LMCI was positive in October for the third time in the past five months. Revisions are to be expected in any statistic, but more so with the Fed’s factor model by its construction where it has to predict certain parts of its nineteen inputs. Not all those statistics are readily available when it is published and many undergo benchmark [...]
Revenue at IBM fell just barely in Q3 2016, perhaps something of an achievement for beleaguered Big Blue. The company has seen its revenue shrink for an astonishing 18 quarters in a row. During that time, IBM has been written off as no longer important, where once a bellwether for the industry and even the whole global economy now supposedly [...]
The JOLTS series is, in my view, a second tier data set made so by its computational connections to the CES. The Job Openings portion I believe has proven over the past few years why it is less reliable, surging so far out of character that it is all alone in suggesting huge economic positivity that even the main BLS [...]
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