Tag Archives: US/Global Economics

February jobs report: the first sign of the economic slowdown spreading to jobs? HEADLINES: +20,000 jobs added U3 unemployment rate -0.2% from 4.0% to 3.8% U6 underemployment rate  -0.8% from 8.1% to 7.3% (NEW 20 YEAR LOW) Here are the headlines on wages and the broader measures of underemployment: Wages and participation rates Not in Labor Force, but Want a Job Now: down -32,000 from 5.254 million to 5.222 million Part time for economic reasons: down...

This Friday, watch out for an outright decline in temporary employment Almost a month ago I flagged the decelerating staffing index, and showed how it corresponded with the leading sector of temporary jobs in the monthly jobs report: the Staffing Index isn’t seasonally adjusted, [so] you really have to compare each on a YoY basis. And while the two don’t turn positive or negative at the same time or for the same duration, they do correlate well on YoY...

Two more leading sectors to watch for in tomorrow’s jobs report Yesterday I updated my look at temporary jobs, a known leading indicator for jobs overall.  Today I want to look at two more leading sectors: manufacturing and construction. Unlike temporary jobs, I’m not looking for a possible decline. Rather, I am looking for a deceleration in growth from their recent peaks. Let’s take them in order. First, manufacturing. Because the ISM is picky about...

Residential construction declines in December, but looks to be bottoming Residential construction spending lags sales, permits, and starts. But it still leads the economy overall, and it is a much smoother data series, with little noise. It is almost all signal, and so it is an important confirmation of the more leading data. In December, residential construction spending did decline vs. November and also vs. one year ago, but it was higher than...

(Dan here…lifted from Bondadd blog) by New Deal democrat Climate change is the detonation of the Population Bomb You know the drill … it’s Sunday so I speak my mind on things non-economic….. Way back in the days of the dinosaurs when I was a young teen, I concluded that there were really only two extinction level threats to humanity: 1. Nuclear war 2. Overpopulation (a/k/a “The Population Bomb”) As to the first, fortunately we have gone over 70 years...

by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for February 25 – March 1 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. Last year the most significant developments were in the long leading indicators. Now that is translating into the short leading indicators. As always, clicking and reading not only should be educational for you, but rewards me a little bit for my efforts.

Visa Restrictions And Intellectual Degradation I am in New York attending the Eastern Economic Association meetings.  I was in an agent-based modeling session in which two partticipants participated by internet because they were both refused visaas to enter the US.  One was from Turkey, which I think is under strict review by the current administration.  The other, a woman from India, working for an American think tank in Toronto, may have simply been a...

Q4 GDP: mixed signals for the future (UPDATED with graphs) I didn’t post anything yesterday, so I’ll make up for it with two posts today.This morning we finally got the very delayed first look at Q4 GDP. As per my usual practice, I am less interested in what happened in the rear view mirror, which was an annualized gain of +2.6%, than what the number tells us about what lies ahead. The two forward-looking components of GDP are (1) private fixed...

Manufacturing holds on in February The theme for most reports remains that the government shutdown in December and January, plus a 30 year record cold snap for a week in January, put a real dent in the economy. That certainly was the message of December personal spending and December and January personal spending this morning. But it looks like there was no significant damage to manufacturing. This week three regional Fed banks reported February...

December housing permits and starts mixed, support slowdown scenario This morning we finally got December housing permits and starts. Remember that starts are more volatile than permits, and single family permits are the least volatile of all. Here’s what the overall data looks like: While starts and completions laid an egg, permits actually went up a little bit. In particular, for housing to be outright recessionary, I would want to see single...