Still Climbing the Jobs Mountain
This week was a busy week. We saw honor and respect placed upon our 41st President, George H. W. Bush, as the country watched the former President's casket be transported to and from Texas, and back again. Tearful good-byes. A multitude of fond recollections of a Navy pilot, ambassador, Vice-President, President, husband, father, and grandfather. We also received good economic data.
(Dec 3) How do you know if something is good if you do not know what to expect? The week started where last week ended with a forecast of a jobs report, the ADP Payroll Report forecast article. The ADP data is entirely seasonally adjusted. The data indicated that all sectors should grow month to month , and November to November, except Information Technology. It was possible that the annual growth rate would drop October to November. It was thought that we could see over 200,000 payroll positions added to the economy.
(Dec. 6) The ADP Payroll report release was postponed from Wednesday to Thursday due to the Federal Holiday for the funeral of former President George HW Bush. We would all be honored if we could receive the kind words that the former President received. The article "Remarkable November ADP" details how while the month to month growth rate was less than expected, the annual growth rate was still better than November 2016 and November 2017, based on the data revisions from earlier this year. We did see month to month and November to November growth in all sectors except IT.
(Dec. 6) We also received the weekly unemployment claims data on Thursday. This time of year we see an increasing number of lay-offs. It happens every year. The annual low for first-time claims is normally around September 30th, and the annual low is normally the first week of October for continuing claims. Both tend to hit their annual highs during the first week of January. The data is recorded as non-seasonally adjusted (NSA) data and reported as seasonally adjusted (SA) data. The number that used to garner headlines was the seasonally adjusted first-time unemployment claims data. There are two other components that need some attention: the continuing claims data and the insured unemployment rate. The article "Continuing Unemployment Claims Historically Low" details how we have set records this year for record low first-time claims, with a record 21 weeks with NSA FTU under 200,000 claims, how we set a near record low continuing claims level this October, and how we did set an all-time record low for the insured unemployment rate. The fist-time claims and continuing claims data both recorded spikes, NSA, and were reported as dropping SA.
(Dec. 7) The November Jobs Report went over like a lead balloon. If people had spent some time digging into the data then they would have found that it was quite good. "November Jobs Report: What Recession Coming?" examined the Current Population Survey (CPS) jobs and unemployment data and the Current Employment Statistics (CES) worker data.
- We had our our fourth best November NSA CES private sector growth month since 1979.
- We are on track to add more Private sector jobs than we did during 2016 and 2017, and we may even surpass 2015. The economy is growing, not slowing.
- The headline private sector number was 165,000. If we had used the seasonal factor from 2016 then we would have heard about 235,000 SA CES private sector workers being added to the economy.
- The participation level improved from November 2017.
- The level of multiple job workers dropped below 8 million this month.
- Full-time jobs dropped while part-time jobs grew, as projected
There is more information in the article. There were revisions that went unrecognized. There will also be more articles on the data next week. We had been in a period of time where we had a "jobs iceberg." We are still climbing the "jobs mountain."
We learned this week that former President George HW Bush's greatest accomplishments were being a husband, father, and grandfather. We also learned a new acronym.: CAVU
Ceiling and Visibility Unlimited.
May it be so with you.