Industrial production tanks on GM strikes; Real retail sales decline slightly First, let me briefly address industrial production, which fell -0.8% in October. On its face this is an awful number. But take it with a big grain of salt: mainly it reflected the GM strike. Here’s the applicable note from the Federal Reserve: Manufacturing output […]
Initial claims continue to show slowdown, but no imminent recession I’ve been monitoring initial jobless claims closely for the past several months, to see if there are any signs of a slowdown turning into something worse. Simply put, no recession is going to begin unless and until layoffs increase. My two thresholds are: 1. If […]
Real average and aggregate wages declined in October October’s consumer inflation reading came in at a surprisingly high +0.4%, which as shown in red in the graph below, was one of the 3 highest in the past two years. Meanwhile average hourly earnings increased less than +0.2% – the second lowest reading in the past […]
How economists blew the analysis of the manufacturing jobs shock I came across this article yesterday, posted by – to his credit – Brad DeLong, whose argument it eviscerates. Entitled “The Epic MIstake about Manufacturing That’s Cost Americans Millions of Jobs,” it deserves widespread attention. So I am summarizing it here. But by all means go and […]
Scenes from the October employment report: leading sectors remain poor Yesterday I discussed unemployment and labor force participation from last week’s jobs report, which with the significant exception that better wage growth would probably lead to more people deciding that they’d like a job, remains very positive. Today let’s look at the bad news, which […]
Scenes from the October employment report: full employment? Last Friday the household jobs report – the one that tells us about unemployment, underemployment, and labor force participation – has been particularly strong in the past three months. This has driven some impressive gains in labor force participation and the unemployment rate. To begin with, gains […]
A note about turnout in yesterday’s elections I haven’t seen any information yet on how turnout in last night’s elections, particularly in Virginia, which was an “off-off year” election, i.e., no statewide races at all, only state legislative and local races. The state of Virginia keeps turnout statistics online back to 1976. The bottom line is, clearly […]
September JOLTS report: mixed with “hard” positives and a “soft” negative This morning’s JOLTS report for September was mixed, with a decline in job openings and an increase in layoffs, but advances in hiring and voluntary quits. To review, because this series is only 20 years old, we only have one full business cycle to […]
October jobs report paints a portrait of a full (or nearly full) employment economy HEADLINES: +128,000 jobs added (+148,000 ex-Census) U3 unemployment rate up +0.1% from 3.5% to 3.6% U6 underemployment rate up +0.1% from 6.9% to 7.0% Leading employment indicators of a slowdown or recession I am highlighting these because many leading indicators overall […]
The consumer / employment sector of the economy continues powering along ….. aaaaand, I’m back. Did you miss me? Here is the essence of my view of the economy right now: 1. The producer sector of the economy is struggling, partly due to higher interest rates in the last two years filtering through the system, […]