Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Scenes from the October jobs report: soft landing vs. continued slow deceleration

Scenes from the October jobs report: soft landing vs. continued slow deceleration  – by New Deal democrat  First, an editorial note: economic news is light this week, so don’t be surprised if I play hooky for a day or two. That being said, let’s take a look at the most important trends, as I […]

July jobs report: almost across the board deterioration in leading sectors

July jobs report: almost across the board deterioration in leading sectors  – by New Deal democrat My focus remains on whether jobs growth continues to decelerate, and whether the leading indicators, particularly manufacturing and construction jobs, as well as the unemployment rate (which leads going into recessions) have meaningfully deteriorated. Almost all of these items […]

Dueling May jobs reports: establishment report strong, household report pre-recessionary.

Dueling May jobs reports: establishment report strong, household report pre-recessionary  – by New Deal democrat My focus for this report continued to be whether the leading sectors and other indicators  continued to decline, and whether the pace of growth continued to decelerate. The establishment side of the report was strong, with most leading indicators improving. […]

What to watch most for in this Friday’s jobs report

What to watch most for in this Friday’s jobs report  – by New Deal democrat After a two week drought, this week a plethora of economic stats get reported. Most importantly for my purposes that includes house prices, construction spending, the ISM manufacturing report, and of course on Friday nonfarm payrolls. Speaking of which, 3 […]

More on deteriorating tax withholding receipts and jobs reports

More on deteriorating tax withholding receipts and jobs reports  – by New Deal democrat I have a new post up at Seeking Alpha, laying out all of the short leading indicators, and concluding conditions have now been met for a recession to begin at any point in the next 6 months. There’s one graph I intended […]

May JOLTS report: a significant deceleration in the underlying jobs market has likely begun

May JOLTS report: a significant deceleration in the underlying jobs market has likely begun Late last year I introduced the idea that the jobs market was similar to a game of musical chairs, where employers added or took away chairs, and employees tried to best allocate themselves among the chairs.  Because of the pandemic, several […]

Another strong showing for jobs and unemployment; strong wage growth likely lags inflation

March jobs report: yet another strong showing for jobs and unemployment; while strong wage growth nevertheless likely lags inflation Here are the three main trends I was most interested in this month: 1. Is the pace of job growth beginning to decelerate?  2. Is wage growth holding up? Is it accelerating? 3. Are the leading […]

February jobs report: a Big Win!

February jobs report: a Big Win! There were two main trends I was looking for in this jobs report:  1. Is the pace of job growth beginning to decelerate?  2. Is wage growth holding up? Is it accelerating? The answers were: 1. The 6-month average of monthly gains, which was running at 548,000 in the 2nd […]

Another excellent job report

January jobs report: huge gain in wages, huge upward revisions to past few months, limited Omicron impact Here are the three issues I was looking to see addressed in this jobs report: 1. Would last month’s “poor” 199,000 number of new jobs be revised higher? 2. Is wage growth holding up? Is it accelerating?3. In December, big […]

October JOLTS report: at least the jobs market isn’t getting any worse in disequilibrium

October JOLTS report: at least the jobs market isn’t getting any worse in disequilibrium The JOLTS report for October was released this morning. While it did not indicate any significant progress towards a new labor equilibrium, at least the trends did not get any more destabilized. Job openings (blue in the graph below) increased to […]