Bad Feeling About Us Non-farm

[ElPapasito]

[Joey Buttafueco Jr]

Oh really?

[ElPapasito]

Now I know why I'm in the job I'm in and not the city!

[D.C.]

Now I know why I'm in the job I'm in and not the city!

Nevermind, you can still be bearish about the consumer credit in a few hours

[LuckyOne]

Now I know why I'm in the job I'm in and not the city!

You realised and admitted that you were wrong within 4 minutes. I think that you could do better in the City than you think.

The cardinal sin for traders is to not admit that they are wrong when it is patently obvious that they are. That crime was committed on a massive scale from 2005 to 2007 which is why we are in this mess now ......

Edited August 7, 2009 by LuckyOne

[Timm]

The pace of U.S. job losses slowed more than expected last month and the unemployment rate dropped for the first time since April 2008, the clearest sign yet that the worst recession since the Great Depression is easing. Payrolls fell by 247,000, after a 443,000 loss in June, the Labor Department said today in Washington. The jobless rate dropped to 9.4 percent from 9.5 percent.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...id=am2AmQwl3XfE

[arby1]

so the number of people in work fell, yet the unemployment rate decreased? did lots of unemployed people die in july? or more likely, are people dropping off the unemployment statistic faster than they're being added to it due to accounting practices?!

[bpw]

Where did the original graphic come from? Its a nice summary of what is to come.

When they say 'rate' are they refering to the rate of change, which is twisting the truth? The absolute level of unemployment increased by 247,000 to around 1.4million - that's a lot of mouths for Uncle Sam to feed. The unemployment rate is seasonal despite extracting farm payrolls. That said employment rose from July to Dec in 2007 so perhaps we are seeing the benefits of stimulus money.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

Good news tho since I would not want to be one of the unemployed.

Now the graph we all want to see is the total unemployed which has increase from 4.5% to near enough 10% of the working population. The drag of these people and their impact on house prices has yet to be felt. My guess is Obama has at most 18mths to get most of them back into work - if he doesnt then there will be another major downturn. Dont expect the game to be over for another 2 yrs.

so the number of people in work fell, yet the unemployment rate decreased? did lots of unemployed people die in july? or more likely, are people dropping off the unemployment statistic faster than they're being added to it due to accounting practices?!

Edited August 7, 2009 by bpw

[drhewitt]

Where did the original graphic come from? Its a nice summary of what is to come.

I presume when they say rate they are refering to the rate of change which is of course twisting the truth. The absolute level of unemployment increased by 247,000. Of course, its highly seasonal so I would guess this is to be expected. Good news tho since I would not want to be one of the unemployed.

The statistic we all want to see is the total unemployed.

The number of unemployed do not include those on federally funded extended benefits which rose by almost 100,000.

States reported 2,754,391 persons claiming EUC (Emergency Unemployment Compensation) benefits for the week ending July 18, an increase of 97,512 from the prior week. There were 607,368 claimants in the comparable week in 2008. EUC weekly claims include both first and second tier activity.

http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/eta/ui/current.htm

The advance number of actual initial claims under state programs, unadjusted, totaled 463,062 in the week ending Aug. 1, a decrease of 48,296 from the previous week. There were 382,792 initial claims in the comparable week in 2008.

The advance unadjusted insured unemployment rate was 4.5 percent during the week ending July 25, a decrease of 0.1 percentage point from the prior week. The advance unadjusted number for persons claiming UI benefits in state programs totaled 5,987,728, a decrease of 116,319 from the preceding week. A year earlier, the rate was 2.4 percent and the volume was 3,166,763.

Extended benefits were available in Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin during the week ending July 18.

Initial claims for UI benefits by former Federal civilian employees totaled 1,661 in the week ending July 25, a decrease of 30 from the prior week. There were 1,981 initial claims by newly discharged veterans, a decrease of 80 from the preceding week.

There were 19,783 former Federal civilian employees claiming UI benefits for the week ending July 18, an increase of 1,066 from the previous week. Newly discharged veterans claiming benefits totaled 30,107, an increase of 175 from the prior week.

The highest insured unemployment rates in the week ending July 18 were in Puerto Rico (8.0 percent), Michigan (6.7), Oregon (6.5), Pennsylvania (6.5), Nevada (6.1), Wisconsin (5.7), Connecticut (5.5), New Jersey (5.5), California (5.4), Rhode Island (5.3), and South Carolina (5.3).

The largest increases in initial claims for the week ending July 25 were in Ohio (+891), Oklahoma (+644), Mississippi (+222), Louisiana (+154), and Alaska (+129), while the largest decreases were in North Carolina (-9,809), Michigan (-9,085), Florida (-8,714), Georgia (-6,948), and Alabama (-3,822).

[drrayjo]

The drop in the unemployment rate happened only because more people stopped looking for work and were thus ineligible to be counted as officially unemployed. The share of adults with jobs actually fell: to 59.4 percent, from 59.5 percent.

[Dead Spider]

Didn't Obama say a while ago that he would be creating 600,000 "summer jobs" .

I'm assuming he meant this year .

Edit : http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8090147.stm

Edited August 7, 2009 by Dead Spider

[drhewitt]

A year ago there were less than 100,000 persons on federally funded UI benefits, the total will reach 3,000,000 by Sep/Oct this year.

That is 3,000,000 people who have exhausted their state's 26 week unemployment program.

There will be people who will exhaust even the Federal benefits and will drop out of the system altogether.

Edited August 7, 2009 by drhewitt

[Hoggums]

All the NFP numbers tell you is who lost their job and who is looking for a new one.

If someone gives up looking for work then they fall off the radar and don't get counted.

So the rate of decline is falling (face it - the numbers are still going down not up) but that's as much with people giving up looking for work as companies not sacking people anymore.

So exactly where is the good news here?

Edited August 7, 2009 by Hoggums

[Bloo Loo]

so the number of people in work fell, yet the unemployment rate decreased? did lots of unemployed people die in july? or more likely, are people dropping off the unemployment statistic faster than they're being added to it due to accounting practices?!

in the US, they have to be seeking work to be unemployed, so they were saying in bloomberg.

I expect some have given up.

[ElPapasito]

Where did the original graphic come from? Its a nice summary of what is to come.

http://www.forexfactory.com/

A day of real contrasts in the statistics: either much worse or much better than expected.

[kilroy]

so the number of people in work fell, yet the unemployment rate decreased? did lots of unemployed people die in july? or more likely, are people dropping off the unemployment statistic faster than they're being added to it due to accounting practices?!

34mln Americans on food stamps tells you all you need to know.

[TwoWolves]

I know of some former American bankers who have given-up looking for work now and are waiting out the recession with their parents.

One of them speaks fluent French so went over to France looking for work with her unemployed husband. Last I heard they had no luck there either, having Goldmans on your CV apparently doesn't open all doors.

[Neverland]

I know of some former American bankers who have given-up looking for work now and are waiting out the recession with their parents.

One of them speaks fluent French so went over to France looking for work with her unemployed husband. Last I heard they had no luck there either, having Goldmans on your CV apparently doesn't open all doors.

Slightly off-topic, but

Purely in terms of what happens to unemployed bankers, this blog (or series?) in the WSJ is pretty interesting:

http://blogs.wsj.com/laidoff/

Rather sobering for any "Masters of the Universe" contemplating a mega mortgage...

[Jessica Rabbit]

I love the way the blog says their job 'was eliminated'..makes it sound so much more dramatic than being made redundant.

Edited August 7, 2009 by Jessica Rabbit

[GodLovesPork]

dow up 150 pts currently, market does not care abt anything, any data is bullish, everything is "better than expected", it wants to go higher

[Flying Dutchman]

Regardless of my skepticism for the US NFP figures, the U.S. interest rate futures markets liked them. Within an hour of the data release they have fully priced in to the fed-funded, Feb 2010 contracts about a 100% chance of an I.R adjustment to 0.5% in Jan 2010.

Link: http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews...738608820090807

Interest rate futures now fully price a rate increase to 0.5 percent from the current range of zero to 0.25 percent at the Jan 26-27 Federal Open Market Committee meeting -- one meeting earlier than before the payrolls report.

"The improvement in the better-than-expected jobs data is yet another signal the economy is stabilizing, and that the era of low rates may be coming to a close," said Lawrence Glazer, managing partner at Mayflower Advisors in Boston.

FD

Edited August 7, 2009 by Flying Dutchman

[AvidFan]

Obama still the optimistic fool, I see:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/32330683

White House Still Warns of 10 Percent Jobless Rate

Published: Friday, 7 Aug 2009 | 11:15 AM ET Text Size By: AP

The White House on Friday welcomed a dip in the nation's unemployment rate but said President Barack Obama still expects it to hit 10 percent this year.

The new numbers show that employers cut 247,000 jobs in July, the smallest reduction of any month this year. The unemployment rate dropped from 9.5 percent to 9.4 percent, although one of the reasons for that change is that hundreds of thousands of people left the labor force.

"The number we're focused on is that we're still losing jobs," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

The jobs report showed that layoffs are tapering off, however, a better-than-expected showing and another sign that the recession is ending. "It is more evidence that we have pulled back from the edge and away from the brink of a depression," the president's spokesman said.

But the initial White House reaction was mostly guarded.

"None of us loses sight of the fact that last month a quarter million people lost their jobs," Gibbs said. "The long-term unemployment rate is increasing. People are going to begin exhausting their even extended unemployment benefits soon. While the number itself shows that we're losing fewer jobs each month, obviously we've got a lot of work to do."

Obama in June said he expected unemployment to reach 10 percent later this year. Gibbs said Friday that prediction still stands. He compared the economy to a sick patient who was in a life-threatening condition, has stabilized, but will still endure good days and bad days on the way to recovery.

"I think it's going to be quite some time before we start seeing genuine, sustained, positive job growth," the spokesman said.

Obama has urged Americans to be patient and give time for his $787 billion stimulus package of tax cuts and increased government spending to take hold. Gibbs contended Friday that there was no doubt the stimulus plan has contributed to the slowing rate of job losses.

[MOP]

Obama still the optimistic fool, I see:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/32330683

White House Still Warns of 10 Percent Jobless Rate

Published: Friday, 7 Aug 2009 | 11:15 AM ET Text Size By: AP

" The unemployment rate dropped from 9.5 percent to 9.4 percent, although one of the reasons for that change is that hundreds of thousands of people left the labor force."

[LuckyOne]

The of course, we have the "real" data from our friends at Shadow Stats (SGS) (http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data)

U3 is the officially reported rate of 9.4% or so. This excludes people who have given up looking for work because they can't find work and have become discouraged.

U6 is an officially complied statistic which doesn't get much reporting in the US. It stands at something like 16.1%. U6 = U3 + the discouraged workers + the marginally attached workers + part timers who would like to be full time if the economy were better. This is probably a better representation of the true state of the labour market in the US than U3.

Finally we have the SGS estimate of 20.2% or so.

To put things in perspective U3 has grown from 4.25% to 9.5% since mid 2007. U6 has grown from 8% to 16% while the SGS measure has grown from 12% to 20%. (Rough readings from the graph)

I know that the markets think that the smaller than expected loss in jobs is good news. The rate of change might be an improvement but the absolute level of unemployment is a disaster for the economy and it is going to take a sustained period of robust growth for them to return to more normal levels. We appear to be a long way away from that happening.