No Doubt Employment Slowing
This morning the market found the jobs data somewhat disappointing. Labor Secretary Carlos Gutierrez just appeared on CNBC to give the administration’s spin, which is that the positive revisions to August data make up for the weaker than expected September headline number.
As we have said before:
We think the seasonally-adjusted employment numbers are essentially bunk. We think whether or not the seasonally-adjusted estimate (it will be revised at least three times) from the labor department is approximately equal to what the economists were expecting it to be is irrelevant.
We do think that the unadjusted year/year change, in terms of growth in the labor force, gives us important information about the state of the economy and consumers’ ability to spend.
Right now, it is telling us things are slowing down. Fast.
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
Like this article? Why not try out:
[...] That sounds like a pretty mushy representation – slowing but not as bad as we were afraid. Particularly if, as has been the case in recent months, digging into the data uncovered some ugliness hidden by the headline number. In the September report, we found exactly the opposite. First, our favored measure of the year/year change in employment excluding any seasonal adjustments (since last October also occurred in autumn) improved sequentially. While the one month improvement is not sufficient to declare an end to the downward trend, it is better than further deterioration. [...]