The BLS published its updated JOLTS figures for August last week, and while most commentary continues to focus on the ephemeral Job Openings category it shouldn’t. Though Job Openings declined sharply by just about 300,000 in the current estimate (from a slight downward revision of July) it still rates as completely out of alignment with the rest of the JOLTS [...]
Typically when any statistic gets way out ahead of itself it will eventually revert toward its prior state. That is the nature of stochastic modeling in economic accounts and it presents a great weakness. It is not unshared, however, as that is nothing more than recency bias applied to a quite dynamic world. The great flaw in any stochastic model [...]
The latest updates for the JOLTS showed that job openings in April surged to a new series high. Jumping by 267k (seasonally adjusted), the trend in job openings is being used as confirmation that there must be some robust underlying trend in overall payrolls despite the ubiquitous slump everywhere else. In other words, this is another series from the BLS [...]
The latest August figures for the JOLTS companion to the payroll climate continue to raise the possibility of statistical corruptions. Back in June, the level of job openings suddenly and very sharply spiked upward. That was used as confirmation of the ongoing surge in employment, but without attribution as to how closely job openings relate to payroll indications through the [...]
I think it pretty clear after examining the rest of the labor market that the pop in JOLTS estimation of job openings fits well within the idea of statistical problems. This is wholly unsurprising given that JOLTS is directly tied into the BLS’ Current Employment Situation report, meaning that part of the Establishment Survey forms the basis for the calculation [...]
The term consumer exhaustion can apply to several circumstances, but typically they all relate to exhaustion of resources. Households can appeal to wages, transfers, savings or debt, and usually some combination of the four, to maintain living standards and discretionary budgets. So exhaustion, like that of yesterday’s GDP, could be due to any one segment failing more than the others [...]
With both the final revision (for now, benchmarks still to be re-estimated numerous times) for last quarter’s GDP estimate and the news that jobless claims “unexpectedly” fell, the idea of recovery is making rounds again particularly in the context of spring (the season). BusinessWeek sums it up best: Applications for U.S. unemployment benefits unexpectedly declined last week to an almost [...]
It’s not often you hear contrary viewpoints from mainstream commentators that survive the gauntlet of translations and redirection. That has been particularly true in the past week or so since both the GDP report and jobs report were so reassuring. That these encouraging developments do not extend to any deeper meaning is left out, and has thus been the focus [...]
The JOLTS survey this week showed pretty much the same bleak employment environment as we have seen throughout 2013. On a seasonally adjusted basis, the rate of new job openings declined significantly from July (-180k), and now stands at a level first reached in March 2012. If job openings are at all indicative of corporate labor appetite, then there really [...]
The curious case of the jobs survey dichotomy continues. While the mainstream focus on the Establishment Survey’s “steady growth” trend provides cover for the FOMC to contemplate scaling back their interventions (and thus the frothy/bubbly foundation), it is fully alone in its interpretation of the jobs situation. The Household Survey has diverged both in quantity and, more importantly, quality. Now [...]
Stay In Touch