Category: Employment
The analysis published under this category are as follows.Tuesday, August 09, 2016
The Phony U.S. Jobs Recovery / Politics / Employment
Last Friday saw the release of a bombshell jobs report, with headlines exclaiming that the US economy added over 250,000 jobs in July, far in excess of any forecasts. The reality was far more grim. Those "jobs" weren't actually created by businesses – they were created by the statisticians who compiled the numbers, through the process of "seasonal adjustment." That's a bit of statistical magic that the government likes to pull out of its hat when the real data isn't very flattering. It's done with GDP, it's done with job numbers, and similar manipulation is done with government inflation figures to keep them lower than actual price increases. In reality there are a million fewer people with jobs this month than last month, but the magic of seasonal adjustment turns that into a gain of 255,000.
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Monday, June 06, 2016
The Keynesians Stole The Jobs / Economics / Employment
Late last week the markets were shocked by a surprisingly bad May jobs report - the worst monthly report in nearly six years. The experts expected the US economy to add 160,000 jobs in May, but it turns out only 38,000 jobs were added. And to make matters worse, 13,000 of those 38,000 were government jobs! Adding more government employees is a drain on the economy, not a measure of economic growth. Incredibly, there are more than 102 million people who are either unemployed or are no longer looking for work.
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Thursday, April 14, 2016
Saving Middle-Class Jobs in America: Is It Worth $30 Socks? / Politics / Employment
My younger daughter doesn’t conform to, well, much of anything. As a very young girl she insisted on doing her own hair. She liked pony tails – lots of them – but as a four or five-year-old, she didn’t have much skill at getting them right. This meant that she often had 11 or 12 fountains of blonde hair sticking out all over her head. She was very proud.Read full article... Read full article...
Thursday, March 31, 2016
Beware of March Non Farm Payrolls. They Have the Worst Record than any Other Month / Economics / Employment
The table below shows the consistency of misses (actual figure below consensus forecasts) in March NFPs over the last three years. In fact, NFP figures for the month of March have come in below forecasts in 7 out of the last 8 March reports with an average miss of -59k.
Most strikingly & recently, last year's March report showed a 126K reading, well below consensus of 245K. Interestingly, that 129K reading was revised down to 88K one month later.
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Friday, March 04, 2016
US Jobs Report 242,000 Jobs: 304,000 Were Part-Time; Average Weekly Earnings Sank / Economics / Employment
Jobs came in well above expectations at 242,000 despite tax data collections that support a Job Growth estimate of 55,000 to 85,000 .
A quick dive into the details shows the report is a lot weaker than the headline number indicates. Of the 242,000 jobs added, 304,000 of them were part time. That means the economy actually shed 62,000 full-time jobs.
Average hours worked declined as did average weekly earnings despite minimum wage hikes in numerous states at the beginning of the year.
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Saturday, January 09, 2016
U.S.December Payrolls: ‘Back End’ Still Strong; a Closer Look / Economics / Employment
It is important to distinguish the ‘back end’ from the ‘front end’ of the economy or else all you end up with hype emanating from the financial sphere every time an economic data release comes out. For example, I was critical of Martin Armstrong’s post, Is the recession Starting? in a rebuttal post, Armstrong 3+ Decades Late on Manufacturing because Marty’s post not only brought back some jaw droppingly old fashioned concepts about US manufacturing (JiT and automation replacing labor) but it focused only on the ‘front end’ of the economy, affirming the “ECM” in a short info-blurb.
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Wednesday, January 06, 2016
ISM a Leading Indicator of Jobs? Why 2016 Will Shock to the Downside! / Economics / Employment
ISM a Leading Indicator of Jobs?
I expect monthly jobs reports in 2016 will shock to the downside. Before I list all the reasons, here's an interesting chart that suggests manufacturing ISM is a leading indicator of jobs.
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Wednesday, December 16, 2015
UK Jobs: No Pay, No Play / Economics / Employment
Today's release of the UK jobs figures confirms the suspicions of the doves at the Bank of England, with earnings (pay) growth continuing to decline, joblessness pushing higher for the fourth straight month even as the unemployment rate hit a fresh 7-year low of 5.2%.
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Tuesday, November 17, 2015
The Gig Economy Is the New Normal / Economics / Employment
An already-confusing employment environment grew even more complicated this past week. Many readers responded to my “Crime in the Jobs Report” letter with their own stories. Some confirmed what I wrote, while others disputed it. Some of the stories I read from readers who are stuck far from where they want to be in this job market were very moving. I think everyone agrees the labor outlook is uncertain. I sense a lot of nervousness, even from those who have secure jobs that pay well. In today’s letter, I’m going to respond to some of the observations and data that came in this week on employment.
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Monday, November 09, 2015
U.S. Jobs NonFarm Payrolls +271,000; Is the Game Changing? / Economics / Employment
I can already tell NFTRH 368 is going to be a flowing thing because there is a lot of on-point material to talk about. So the usual standard charts will be minimized in favor of trying to get a good read on what is in process in the markets, in policy and in the economy.
Specifically, given the October Payrolls data, its effect on interest rates and the US dollar we seem to be back to a point similar to where we were 1 year ago when we used a strong USD (and corresponding weak Yen and Euro) to plot bullish trade possibilities in Japan and Europe, and a bearish environment for US exporters.
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Thursday, October 22, 2015
Employment Is Nothing Like Slavery / Politics / Employment
Julian Adorney writes: What is necessary to take away a man’s freedom? For many progressives, nothing more then a bad workplace. Amazon takes ongoing heat for its work environment, with opponents like Business Insider calling it a “slave camp.”
But this comparison mistakes the fundamental nature of coercion.
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Saturday, September 05, 2015
Establishment Survey +173K Jobs, Private Jobs +140,000; U.S. Unemployment Rate 5.1% / Economics / Employment
The establishment survey came in a weaker than expected 173,000 job. The Bloomberg Consensus estimate was 223,000 jobs.
However, the preceding two months were revised up by 44,000 and wages were strong. Bloomberg provides a nice summation of the strengths and weaknesses.
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Friday, September 04, 2015
Another Hysterically False BLS US Unemployment Report / Politics / Employment
It’s that time of the month again, where the Bureau of Lies and Scams issues their latest manipulated, massaged, and falsified unemployment data to the willfully ignorant masses. The MSM will unquestioningly regurgitate the lies with breathless enthusiasm. The Wall Street hucksters will interpret any data as positive for the stock market.
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Friday, August 14, 2015
Why It’s Not Always Good to be a Professional / Politics / Employment
Decades ago, newspaper reporters had low wages and no bylines.As expected, they were a bit testy about the low wages.
So, publishers figured out that if they gave reporters bylines, it would soothe their savage egos.
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Friday, June 26, 2015
How Companies Are Using PIP To Humiliate and Get Rid of Workers / Politics / Employment
In my last two posts, I talked about why hiring now takes longer and how some companies use interview to score free consult from job applicants, today I'd like to discuss the increasing popularity of PIP. This is not your forex trading pip, PIP in the corporate lingo means Performance Improvement Plan.
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Friday, June 05, 2015
US Jobs Table 9 BLS Data Dump / Economics / Employment
It seems the mainstream media is giddy with excitement over the 280,000 jobs supposedly created in May. The markets aren’t so happy, as good news is actually bad news. What excuse will Yellen and her fellow Wall Street puppets at the Federal Reserve use to not increase interest rates from emergency levels of 0.25%? The ten year Treasury rate immediately skyrocketed to 2.43% in seconds. It was at 1.64% in February. That’s a 46% decline in price in four months. Do you still think bonds are a safe investment? Guess what is tied to the 10 Year Treasury rate? Mortgage rates. There goes the fake housing recovery. Artificially high prices, higher mortgage rates, and young people unable to buy sounds like a perfect recipe for collapse.
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Thursday, May 14, 2015
See No Evil: What We Chose to Ignore in the April Jobs Report / Economics / Employment
We live in an age where bad economic news is not only unwelcome, but it is routinely overlooked or excused. On the other hand, good news is spotted and trumpeted even when it doesn't exist. An ideal illustration of this dangerous tendency towards collective selectivity came last week when the markets and the media somehow turned an awful employment report into an ideal data set that confirmed all optimism and contained nothing but good news for investors. In truth, it was anything but.
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Saturday, April 04, 2015
U.S. Jobs Report Huge Miss, +126k Half Forecasts / Economics / Employment
Initial Reaction
For a huge change we see the existing pattern of a strong establishment survey but a poor household survey has been replaced by weakness all around.
Last month I stated "The household survey varies more widely, and the tendency is for one to catch up to the other, over time. The question, as always, is which way?"
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Saturday, March 07, 2015
U.S. Employment Trends - What Age Groups Get the Jobs? / Economics / Employment
One interesting fact in today's jobs report (see Diving Into the Payroll Report: Establishment +295K Jobs; Household +96K Employment, Labor Force -178K) was a drop in teenage unemployment of 1.7 percentage points while overall the unemployment rate fell by only 0.2 percentage points.
The only reason the overall rate fell was a plunge in labor force of 178,000. Household survey employment only rose by 96,000 vs. the establishment survey gain of an alleged +295,000.
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Sunday, February 22, 2015
Why the U.S. Workforce Still Shrinks as Job Growth Rises / Economics / Employment
A significant hint of economic softening is the slight decline in average hourly earnings in December. It came despite "a healthy 252,000 increase in jobs. Economists are struggling to explain the phenomenon," says the Associated Press. "I can't find a plausible empirical or theoretical explanation for why hourly wages would drop when for nine months we've been adding jobs at a robust pace," says a perplexed economist.
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