The U-3 rate dropped, which is good. Average work-week climbed a bit, as did average earnings.
Small gains, but gains.
However, the workforce continues to drop; re-calc'ing U-3 for the number of workers at the beginning of SCOAMF's term would produce 10.9%.
More skepticism from TrimTabs:
...Given the trends in tax withholdings the last few months, there is no way that job growth was a whopping 325,000 in December, certainly not permanent job growth. If there was a big jump in permanent job growth in December we would have seen it in our other real-time indicator, TrimTabs Online Jobs Index. That index, however has declined 8.0% since October which means that hiring managers are sitting on the sidelines until more clarity emerges about economic growth this coming year.
The "325K" number comes from ADP, not the Gummint; the Gummint number was 200K gains.
HT: Zippers
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8 comments:
Hiring managers are NOT waiting for clarity.
That's bullshit.
They are hopeful in the permanency of "doing more with less" because their bonuses, pay rises, and promotions depend on "this new normal"...no matter how overworked, underpaid, underemployed, and, in some cases, unemployed the rank-and-file "rabble" are/become.
Companies sitting on trillions of dollars watching others starving out of cardboard boxes under freeway bridges.
No, it is no better. Sans Christmas hiring, it is status quo.
The January and February numbers will reflect such.
Near minimum wage part time no benefit Christmas jobs do NOT fix a devastated employment structure...no matter what economic "soul food" the black man feeds you.
Our orders are up for the Spring, but they are not sustained through the year...yet. Regardless, we are hiring the equivalent of Temporary Labor to meet the demand. Plan on this being the new normal in the no-longer-exceptional USA.
Evil multinational division I work for is looking for an exceptionally ugly year. We are only 6 days into the new year and have multimillion challenges and battening down the hatches. "Official" UE rates In the area here are all over 10%.
The assault on the energy industry and the slashing of defense will give the economy a boost I'm sure.....
Neo: If you work for an energy company, you are completely screwed right now. I fully expect a second Obama term will attempt to nationalize energy. that is the only possible reason for the current war on energy companies with MACT, no drilling and no pipeline.
Deekaman and neomom:
If I may be so bold as to inquire:
...what industry(ies)?
...what product(s)?
Orders up in, say, the vitamin pill industry is wholly different than, say, orders up in the automotive industry.
The "betterment" of the economy touted by media in the pocket of the government in the pocket of the corporatocracy is bullshit.
2012 will be economically as ugly as the degenerative '07-'11, inclusive.
I will concede SOMEWHAT that economic ugliness is a relatively regional phenomenon, i.e., some areas better/worse than others.
OTrauma is complete shit...and not the good "kind" you can use as "fertilizer" to "grow" the economy.
OTrauma is cryptosporidium causing massive diarrhea of jobs, money(ies), economies, opportunities, and futures.
Rev: I make small gasoline-powered engines for a US company that is not Briggs and Stratton.
I am in complete agreement with you regarding where the economy is going to go in 2012, by the way. Fundamentally, there is nothing to make it better. Unemployment and underemployment are still far too high, infrastructure sucks because business has made little new investment over the past 4 years, personal and government debt still weighs heavily.
My guess is that Christmas was good for business because people added to their debt. There wasn't a bunch of people out there who suddenly had cash to spend.
I do disagree on the reasons companies are sitting on their cash and the reasons for the lower wages/benefits, etc. Yes, it is the new normal, but based on the P&L that I get to see it is because many companies are working on margins that are quite small. This is something Obama did not cause, but has exacerbated. We got here in a bi-partisan manner.
Deek - I'm in Energy. And we are screwed.
St. Rev - we manufacture equipment for the energy industry - ranging from solar and wind to nuclear and everything in between.
The utilities are in lockdown with spending - including minimizing maintenance to just what is critical - because of the war on energy by the Obama admin.
Deekaman and neomom:
Thank you very much for responding.
For me, as I am sure for everyone, all information helps in the battle to understand.
I penned previously, "...I will concede SOMEWHAT that economic ugliness is a relatively regional phenomenon, i.e., some areas better/worse than others...".
I should have substituted "relative" for "relatively regional".
For instance, Information Technology is NOT experiencing small margins as Deekaman is. Quite the contrary. However, H1B laws, PERM laws, age discrimination, offshoring, outsourcing, international cronyism, and other unwanted demises of the IT industry run rampant and it is, to a very large degree, goverment actions and decisions that are causing IT industry employment devastation...at least for American IT workers. American IT workers, via taxation, are forced to subsidize their own demise. Taxes pay politicians who enact policies detrimental to American IT workers...all such policies arranged under the guise of a "bad economy" so the government MUST help IT industry corporations maximize what margins they can eek...according to the IT industry corporations, anyways.
Don't believe it.
Greed is manifest and prolific it IT. So is money. IT is a filthy rich industry full of genius everymen workhorses but greedy evil D/V/P/C-level government-connected frauds like Meg Whitman, Carley Fiorina, Mark Hurd, Steve Ballmer, and YAHOO!'s CEO Hall Of Shame that includes grossly overpaid and grossly underperforming frauds like Carol Bartz (a COMPLETE CAREER FRAUD) and Terry Semel (who's middle name is "devastate") and, presently, YAHOO!'s new CEO who has ZERO media, advertising, and/or content experience and will be remunerated at ~$26MM...about half of what Bartz-Fraud made to do nothing.
These names are just the tip of the iceberg.
Unemployment is wack in IT for Americans. American IT workers have been "sold down the river" by their own goverment and politicians and corporations.
Economic ugliness is a relative phenomenon...relative to geographic area, industry, local government and private sector "agendas", etc.
Mostly, the economic ugliness of high unemployment is a complete function of terrible politicking by politicians with "agendas"...especially since the inception of the engineered "Great Recession".
Nothing will change until the ousting of OTrauma in November 2012. How the change occurs will depend on who takes OTrauma's job. This is nothing everybody doesn't already know.
Unemployment in America these days is an unnatural economic occurrence driven by greed and hidden "agendas".
Peruse other Saint Revolution Dad29 blog comments here.
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