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Good jobs report: 165k new jobs in Apr, previous months revised up, Unemployment 7.5%

Blackjack200

Blackjack200

Lifer
Labor participation is up, just an all around good report especially considering all the cuts in Washinton.

The market is very pleased and the Dow is testing 15,000.

http://www.latimes.com/business/mon...ent-rate-jobs-economy-20130503,0,973835.story

Edit: Interesting that we just can't get a clear signal on the economy. February report is very strong with 268k jobs and everyone thinks "okay, the recovery is finally in full swing". Then the March comes out at 88k jobs and everyone thinks "The sequester is killing the recovery, we're dead in the water". Now this report comes out and it seems like we have good job growth again.
 
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Sequester really hasn't kicked in yet:
"Government Spending Slump Continues

Finally, government spending at all levels was yet another disaster. While payrolls and the U.S. Treasury report suggested at least some ongoing weakness, most analysts expected that government spending would bounce back from its 1.4% negative impact in the fourth quarter to neutral in the first quarter. Instead, government spending managed to disappoint with another large negative contribution of 0.8%. While defense spending was the biggest contributor to the decline, every one of the nine government categories (which also includes state and local governments) in the GDP report made a negative contribution. Unfortunately, the worst of the government impact could still be ahead for the U.S. economy. Today's results came before any impact from the sequester. Yikes."

http://news.morningstar.com/articlenet/article.aspx?id=594421
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I think we got a big pop in economy in first quarter, when chatter about GDP growth of 3% or more popped up on tv. We seem to be slowing since then (weak ADP jobs report yesterday is supposed to project where final revision of BLS will be, not guess what first print will be).

Labor force participation rate increased for all, except for those with less than a high school diploma: http://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cpseea05.htm
 
Transition to a part-time federally assisted society is almost complete. At this point I think any recovery is a good recovery. There sadly is no weaning off this teat though.

No point in complaining anymore, just cash your check when it comes in, and either get or give the rest to the government depending on what your situation is.
 
ParticipationRateProjection.jpg


http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2012/10/employment-decline-in-participation.html


Bubble economy "peak" stats were probably never real, and at best, just stealing demand and jobs from future (January 2008, IIRC, was absolute top of bubble economy in terms of illusory jobs based upon non-sustainable durable demand (again, at best, stealing demand and jobs from future).

Plus corporations learned to operate even more efficiently than before, so that as Jack Welch said late last year, they were back at peak profitability at only about 70% of peak revenue, and using 1/3 less workers (automation removed a ton of jobs permanently).


And scheduling software breaking down shifts into 15 minute increments removing alot of what used to be permanent jobs and replacing them with part-time jobs where shifts may only be 2 - 3 hours at a time:
"While there have always been part-time workers, especially at restaurants and retailers, employers today rely on them far more than before as they seek to cut costs and align staffing to customer traffic. This trend has frustrated millions of Americans who want to work full-time, reducing their pay and benefits.

“Over the past two decades, many major retailers went from a quotient of 70 to 80 percent full-time to at least 70 percent part-time across the industry,” said Burt P. Flickinger III, managing director of the Strategic Resource Group, a retail consulting firm.

No one has collected detailed data on part-time workers at the nation’s major retailers. However, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has found that the retail and wholesale sector, with a total of 18.6 million jobs, has cut a million full-time jobs since 2006, while adding more than 500,000 part-time jobs."

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/b...for-american-workers.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
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Genx87 said:
Push it back to 1950 and you will see we had a bubble in labor participation that is deflating over the past decade.
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Labor participation bubble? I'm not sure high labor participation should ever be called a bubble. Economies should naturally work towards maximum employment, it takes a concerted effort from government regulations and entitlement incentives to keep people from working.
 
momeNt said:
Labor participation bubble? I'm not sure high labor participation should ever be called a bubble. Economies should naturally work towards maximum employment, it takes a concerted effort from government regulations and entitlement incentives to keep people from working.
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Or a bubble in population. I try not to get bent out of shape on these employment numbers. One is measuring people who are looking to work. The other is measuring how many out of the population are working.

Both can be manipulated for an agenda.

One thing we do know is participation rate has been falling for a decade. It has been lower in the past. And it is likely to continue to fall over the next decade.

We know unemployment has been falling. But could spike up if more enter the work force.
 
It is good and I must admit at some point my general pessimism about the economy is just unrealistic. I am glad that I used my head over my gut and a few years ago didn't get out of stocks as much as I may have felt like. More than I should have, but these returns have seen my retirement grow at a really nice pace.
 
Doppel said:
It is good and I must admit at some point my general pessimism about the economy is just unrealistic. I am glad that I used my head over my gut and a few years ago didn't get out of stocks as much as I may have felt like. More than I should have, but these returns have seen my retirement grow at a really nice pace.
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Feels a lot like 2007-2008. Hope the same thing doesn't happen again. But this feels an awful like like a bubble or adjustment is coming. Probably about the time we all start dumping money back into stocks. I'm still on the fence and going to wait a few more months.
 
momeNt said:
Labor participation bubble? I'm not sure high labor participation should ever be called a bubble. Economies should naturally work towards maximum employment, it takes a concerted effort from government regulations and entitlement incentives to keep people from working.
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It was a demographics bubble not a labor participation bubble. The ratio of working age adults to the total population peaked in 2007. It isn't expected to recover any time soon. The baby boomers were a one-off slug of mostly working people. That slug is now passing into retirement. In order to stop the demographucs bubble we need either another baby boom much bigger than the first (which will temporarily make things worse as adults stop working to raise this massive boom of babies) or encourage massive immigration of adults. Both "solutions" are unlikely and come with major problems of their own.

Another name for this unique demographic period is a golden age.
 
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dullard said:
It was a demographics bubble not a labor participation bubble. The ratio of working age adults to the total population peaked in 2007. It isn't expected to recover any time soon. The baby boomers were a one-off slug of mostly working people. That slug is now passing into retirement. In order to stop the demographucs bubble we need either another baby boom much bigger than the first (which will temporarily make thanks work as adults stop working toraise this massive boom of babies) or encourage massive immigration of adults. Both "solutions" are unlikely and come with major problems of their own.

Another name for this unique demographic period is a golden age.
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Yes, I can agree with calling it a demographic bubble of sorts.
 
Blackjack200 said:
Edit: Interesting that we just can't get a clear signal on the economy. February report is very strong with 268k jobs and everyone thinks "okay, the recovery is finally in full swing". Then the March comes out at 88k jobs and everyone thinks "The sequester is killing the recovery, we're dead in the water". Now this report comes out and it seems like we have good job growth again.
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February was revised to 338,00, and March to 132,000 today. February was an outstanding month, and March was so-so. Actually April at 165,000 is merely a decent month. It's the revisions of the 2 prior month which make this such a strong report.
 
Blackjack200 said:
Labor participation is up, just an all around good report especially considering all the cuts in Washinton.

The market is very pleased and the Dow is testing 15,000.

http://www.latimes.com/business/mon...ent-rate-jobs-economy-20130503,0,973835.story

Edit: Interesting that we just can't get a clear signal on the economy. February report is very strong with 268k jobs and everyone thinks "okay, the recovery is finally in full swing". Then the March comes out at 88k jobs and everyone thinks "The sequester is killing the recovery, we're dead in the water". Now this report comes out and it seems like we have good job growth again.
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a 165 job report (above the 150 prediction) is "good" as in it's a golden turd amongst a pile of shit.

Do we need to re-itterate what March's 65k job report (below a 130 prediction If i recall) difference is vs. this gain? We are still not making the numbers when you have months as bad as March. We are supposed to be making 200k MINIMAL.

Those drops in unemployment % are from people that stopped applying detective sherlock.

Or are you really deceived into thinking 93% of this nation is employed?
 
woolfe9998 said:
February was revised to 338,00, and March to 132,000 today. February was an outstanding month, and March was so-so. Actually April at 165,000 is merely a decent month. It's the revisions of the 2 prior month which make this such a strong report.
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How the hell do you go from 65k in March to saying "Whoops, we forgot the other half?""
 
s0me0nesmind1 said:
How the hell do you go from 65k in March to saying "Whoops, we forgot the other half?""
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Because the 95% confidence interval on initial estimates is very large, (ie: around +/- 100,000 jobs) as more data becomes available the confidence interval shrinks and you get more accurate data. That's why they do revisions.
 
Incomplete data set?

Margin of error on topline number is something like +/- 100,000 or 200,000 (I forgot).

As more data comes in in following months, a more accurate data point, with lower margin of error, should be generated.

OB-UM275_jobcha_G_20120907152801.jpg


http://blogs.wsj.com/marketbeat/201...-report-isnt-as-bad-as-it-looks/?mod=yahoo_hs



Plus you have the seasonal adjustment factor (http://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/saar.asp) which may still have residual skew from what happened to economy when stock market crashed in fall winter 2008.


Morningstar director of economic analysis like to use a 3 month moving average, on a year over year basis, to try and filter out some of this short-term noise. Jobs market appeared to be accelerating into new gear in first quarter, but has probably taped back to slightly above trend 2% GDP type growth job creation (175k - 200k per month top line number?)

I think two months in spring are the actual months where most jobs for whole year are created, so raw numbers could be something like 800k, but seasonal adjustment factor reduces headline number to the 160k number reported this morning. Heard comment on tv this morning that today's number appears very clean. But we could still be in for some deceleration going forward (e. g. sequester supposed to knock 50k / month off of upcoming jobs reports number through summer - total 500k jobs lost or not created because of sequester, I think).
 
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Obama and the government have had the stats altered and manipulated to make the situation look better than it is. How many jobs were lost?
 
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