ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/news.release/empsit.txt
Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 132,000 in November, and the unemployment
rate was essentially unchanged at 4.5 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics
of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Job gains continued in several
service-providing industries, including professional and business services, food
services, and health care. Employment declined in construction and manufacturing.
Looking into the numbers, we have:
Construction down (-29,000)
Manufacturing down (-15,000).
The construction drop is from the housing drop (big surprise). The manufacturing bleed has been going on for the last 4 years. The US is going through a transition to high tech manufacturing and losing lower tech manufacturing. The auto companies poor business decisions aren't helping here.
Education/health +41,000. Leisure and hospitality +31,000. 54% of jobs created are in lower paying industries.
Business/professional services increased (+43,000). Not bad. This sector has been doing well for the last few years.
From Bloomberg
Employers in the U.S. added a greater- than-expected 132,000 workers to their payrolls in November, giving the economy a much-needed charge to help it recover from downturns in housing and manufacturing.
The gain in employment followed a 79,000 increase in October that was less than previously estimated, the Labor Department reported today. The jobless rate rose to 4.5 percent from 4.4 percent the previous month.
From CBSMarketwatch:
Job growth continued at a steady moderate pace in November, the Labor Department said Friday. Nonfarm payrolls expanded by 132,000 in November higher than the 112,000 expected by economists surveyed by MarketWatch. The unemployment rate ticked higher to 4.5% in November from 4.4% - a five year low - in the previous month. Job growth in October and September were revised higher by a net 42,000 jobs. The increase in the unemployment rate was expected. Average hourly earnings increased 3 cents, or 0.2% to $16.94. Economists had been expecting a 0.3% gain. Earnings are up 4.1% in the past year. The average workweek held steady at 33.9 hours, also in line with Wall Street expectations. The factory workweek and overtime both declines in November.
From Reuters:
The U.S. economy added a stronger-than-forecast 132,000 jobs in November, the government reported on Friday, though the unemployment rate edged up slightly from October.
The Labor Department said the unemployment rate was up to 4.5 percent from the 5-1/2-year low of 4.4 percent it reached in October. The new-jobs total last month topped Wall Street economists' forecasts that 110,000 jobs would be created.
All the hiring occurred in service industries, where 172,000 jobs were added, while goods-producing industries shed 40,000 jobs. Some 29,000 construction jobs were lost in November on top of a 24,000-job reduction in October, reflecting the reduced level of activity in homebuilding and other construction.
It looks like the general consensus is a net positive.
4 comments:
A question is always lurking in the back of my mind when I hear of US job performance numbers ...
... what are the job figures for the rest of the increasingly integrated North American economy? If the US is losing low end manufacturing to Mexico, there is far more of that going to come back to the US in demand for higher end manufactures and skilled service, than if the US is losing low end manufacturing to China, where far more of that higher end demand will be captured by Japan.
This is not a critique, as such, so much as a pointer to an additional factor to consider.
I don't see how +132,000 can be seen as a "net positive." Don't we have to maintain a rate of +150,000 just to keep pace with new entrants into the job market?
Why is it that there is virtually zero discussion about the number of "phantom" jobs, estimated by the Birth/Death model that was implemented by the BLS in June, 2003. Very interestingly, this was done after the employment figures from the BLS went down every single month from the time Bush took office until the Birth/Death model was implemented; then, wonder of wonders, the employment figures started climbing every month. In 2006, there have been a total of over 900,000 "jobs" created strictly as a result of the Birth/Death model estimate. Given this administration's penchant for manipulating the numbers (i.e. cost of Medicare Plan D, annual budget and deficit numbers, cost of the Iraq/Afghanistan wars, Social Security numbers and projections), why does virtually everyone accept the monthly employment numbers from the BLS as gospel? Same goes for CPI and GDP numbers.
My 2 cents, a subtopic:
[/begin partial exaggeration]
The past few years of increasing proportion of administrative positions (vs. actual caregivers) in the health care industry is enough to prop up a small country's economy.
[/end partial exaggeration]
Seriously though... the net result - since # of caregivers has increased at a steady, predictable rate along with population growth - is still a loss to our country's overall productivity, since resources are being improperly diverted to the incorrect area of the economy.
The ol' guns and butter (or buns and gutters... if your econ prof was convinced that he was intensely funny) example, to use the classic, 2-dimensional production model.
...
I don't mean to muddy up the issue, BTW... I just wanted my first post to be snarky and quizzically-informative in a... ahhh... semi-retarded fashion.
=|
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