Employment Growth Could Look a Lot Slower in January
The employment numbers will be particularly hard to interpret as unusually heavy retail hiring (to support longer store hours) and large jump in the number of package delivery people boosted December results. So if the normal trend line is for 160,000 or so new jobs, I suspect that December's number of 200,000 was inflated by 40,000 or so, and that January should be the same 40,000 below trend, or about 120,000 jobs. That 120,000 number also happens to be the consensus estimate. Then, all things equal, February should look closer to the 160,000 trend-line number. Besides retail and couriers, my guess is finance also will look weaker, as will industries that depend on snow and cold weather, but manufacturing and construction will look a little better.
Job growth of 120,000 is still consistent with year-over-year employment growth of 1.77%, slightly ahead of December's 1.75% rate. In fact, job growth could come in well under 100,000 and still improve on December's rate. So don't let those headlines trumpeting, "Job Growth Almost Cut in Half," scare you.
13 comments:
I think people should't be worried a drop in monthly job growth because temporary workers are hired during the holiday season (Nov./ Dec.) Perhaps it would be better to measure job growth quarter over quarter. then monthly.
Emmy Hattle
I think that the inability to determine the employment numbers is mainly due to the want for more income. Producers and sellers main goal is to make more money, and to do that they create longer working hours. This then results in more jobs due to the demand for longer shifts. I am not shocked by this article
Job growth and decline over December and January shouldn't disrupt people's lives, except for the ones that are taking those temporary jobs during the holidays and eventually being laid off after the holidays are over.
I think it's interesting that there are headlines saying "Job Growth Almost Cut in Half" because it's misleading. Typically only economists or people familiar with economics would know that there would be an inflated number of jobs due to the amount of temporary holiday workers. Headlines like that scare people because they don't know all the facts and they could make false assumptions.
Although the employment numbers are often unreliable and change from month to month, given all the other economic data I agree that the next set of employment numbers is likely to be lower.
Well, despite the overestimation in holiday jobs, keep in mind there is still the summer time seasonal jobs coming up, which should help provide a temporary boost to the economy
I think it's interesting how easy it is for the media to exaggerate things, such as this scenario with the Holiday jobs and seasonal employment, and how much it can be determined reality. These growths and declinations are natural and can be blown out of proportion, therefore creating insecurity among the people.
While the title "Job Growth Almost Cut in Half" is found to be a statistical exaggeration, I feel like many kids in our age group feel this burden. I know many friends that have been trying to find jobs and are struggling to no prevail-understanding that the younger age group notoriously has higher unemployment rates.
I think if the jobs are hard to find that people will not worry. Eventually I think that the economy will turn for the better and jobs will come back. I just recently found a job and I think others can find one also.
The vast majority of American workers should not be scared by these statistics. Any decent amount of job growth and rise in employment poses little to no threat for many of these American jobs.
I find these statistics interesting. I recently watched a FOX news clip featuring the head organizer of the Occupy movement and he stated that unemployment for Americans between 18 and 30 is near 60%. These numbers do not seem to include those statistics. 60% is on par with the Greeks unemployment in this group which you mention in a later article.
Unemployment should not be looked at on a month to month basis. Rather, it should looked at on a yearly basis and evaluated that way.
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