Employment Situation

This was one of the better employment reports of this cycle.  Private payroll employment grew 246,00
while  government employment fell about 10,000 for a net gian of of 236,000.  The household survey also showed a nice gain of 170,000.

 

On a year over year change basis both series are showing nice gains.




You would never know it to listen to the news, but employment in this cycle continues to better than in the previous   cycle.

The workweek also increased 0.1% and the index of aggregate hours worked grew 0.5% of all workers and 0.9% for production workers.  The index is now back to the trend established early in the cycle.

Average hourly earnings growth has bottomed and are starting to move up very nicely.


And this is leading to an improvement in weekly earnings.