The Hill has an attention-grabbing story: 5 takeaways on a surprisingly strong jobs report.
“The U.S. economic system added 517,000 jobs in January, greater than doubling Wall Road expectations and turning up its nostril at prognosticators of an imminent recession. The unemployment fee dropped to three.4 p.c, the bottom stage since 1969. Analysts had been anticipating it to maneuver in the other way, ticking as much as 3.6 p.c.”
Sure, I used to be anticipating U-3 unemployment to extend to three.6% as properly. What occurred? Seasonal changes (BLS doens’t present non-seasonally adjusted knowledge). However the stunning headline (largely as a consequence of seasonal adjustements) was not as shocking if we contemplate that jobs added in January grew at 3.309% year-over-year. Nicely, THAT isn’t all that shocking. Notably since The Fed is gradual strolling its shrinking of The Fed steadiness sheet.
And with over 100 MILLION not within the labor power (apparently, the US labor power by no means actually recovered from the Wuhan China virus), the U-3 unemployment fee touted by the media is deceptive.
Keep in mind that employment is a LAGGING indicator. For instance, the unemployment fee was 4.7% in November 2007 simply previous to the start of the 2008-2009 Nice Recession. So Biden’s bragging in regards to the lowest unemployment fee since 1969 is meaningless in predicting recessions.
So, the January jobs report isn’t as shocking and powerful as speaking heads screamed about. I want BLS would launch non-seasonally adjusted (uncooked) knowledge. However since we now have a dysfunctional Federal authorities, I’m not holding my breath.
And I wouldn’t contemplate averrage hourly earnings development YoY of 4.42% when headline US inflation is 6.42% significantly brag worthy.
In fact, Biden lied about inheriting inflation from Trump. Inflation was 1.28% YoY in December 2020 simply earlier than Biden was sworn-in as President. Then once more, Biden lies about all the things. At the least he simply refused to touch upon the Chinese language Spy Balloons.
