Comments on April Employment
Originally published May 14, 2008
Though headline job losses were smaller than expected in April, the details of the report were weaker than the first impression would encourage. And even though the household survey was stronger than its payroll counterpart, as advertised by the decline in the unemployment rate, a look under its surface also uncovers weakness.
Total employment was off by 20,000, though plus signs were very hard to come by as you scan the sectoral breakdown. Construction fell by 61,000, about evenly divided between residential and nonres; manufacturing shed 46,000, almost all of it in durables. Private services gained 81,000, but many major sectors declined. Wholesale trade was off 11,000; retail, -27,000; information, -2,000. Finance, somewhat mysteriously, gained 3,000. The biggest gains were in health care, up 37,000; bars and restaurants, +18,000; computer systems design, +10,000; and administrative and support services, +13,000. The last sector got no help from its temporary help component, which fell 9,000. Government added 9,000, thanks to an unusually large gain of 4,000 in federal employment. State and local employment was up just 5,000, about a quarter its average over the last year. Budgetary pressures may finally be taking their toll on public employment.
Whiplash: Trading on the MTS Rollercoaster
Originally published January 12, 2007
There ain’t no seat-belt hefty enough to keep you in your seat if you decide to take positions based on evidence in
the Monthly Treasury Statements.
Every couple of months, an analyst seizes on a fluctuation, often a wild fluctuation,
in the Monthly Treasury Statements to make the case that the job market is either far stronger or way weaker
than the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ estimates suggest. Oh, OK, these remarks do come disproportionately
form those on the hunt for evidence that the Bureau of Labor Statistics is underestimating payrolls, witness recent attention to January’s surge in withholding at the federal level, recent stories focused on another strong showing in March receipts, and the fact that once the “hidden strength” story is out in the markets for a given month, the almost inevitable reversal in the following month never makes it to traders’ screens.