Monday, May 06, 2013

More--MUCH More--on the BLS Jobs Report

Hmmmm.  The teetering is showing.

While most pundits have focused on the BLS Establishment Survey, which reported that 165,000 payroll jobs had been created during April, the Household Survey* numbers told a much different story.

Total employment rose by 293,000 during April, but part-time jobs increased by 441,000. As a result, full-time jobs declined by 148,000.

The number of "full-time-equivalent" (FTE) jobs** only increased by 73,000. This was not enough to keep pace with the growth of our working-age population, so the "FTE jobs ratio" (the number of FTE jobs per 100 working-age Americans), fell.

The essay blames it on ObozoCare, which is likely.  It's also possible that there is a lack of sustainable demand, of course.  But if the Feds have been spending umpty-zillion in "stimulus" dollars, Keynes says there WILL be increased demand.  So where is it?

More:

During April, the FTE jobs ratio fell for the fifth month in a row, to 53.09. The earliest warning signal for every recession since 1955 (the first year for which the data is available) has been a significant, sustained decline in this ratio.

As of April, the fall in the FTE jobs ratio from its local peak was only 0.11. This is not yet a strong indicator of an impending recession.

...This having been said, there also has never been a case where the FTE jobs ratio fell for five months in a row and a recession did not follow. So the recent decline is definitely something to be concerned about.
Based upon the historical record, if the current decline in the FTE jobs ratio were to continue, and to reach a cumulative 0.60, renewed recession would become a virtual certainty.

A reasonably-reliable predictor, ECRI, has wavered up and down for several months, with strong growth only emerging in the last couple of weekly reports.  (This predictor is for 6 months out ++).

The Democrat Senate majority lives in interesting times.  Heh.

HT:  PowerLIne


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