Paranoia and Conspiracy Theory in a Time of Excel
Category Archives: employment
Average Monthly Employment Growth Revised Up
With the September employment release, average monthly employment figures over the last four months is 120.5 thousand, versus the three month average as of the August release of 94 thousand. Furthermore, taking into account the preliminary benchmark revision for March 2012, one sees that not only is the trajectory higher, so too is the level of employment.
Benchmark Revisions and Nonfarm Payroll Employment since January 2009
The BLS released preliminary annual benchmark revisions for March 2012. Nonfarm payroll series and private nonfarm payroll series, in logs, normalized to 2009M01, are shown below; adding on the revised levels for March 2012 yields the series shown in red.
The August Employment Report
Policy action is needed, with all deliberate speed.
Non-Government GDP and Employment: Revisiting Lazear’s Comparative Analyses
Reader Peter Schaeffer writes in comments to my rebuttal to Ed Lazear that demonstrates that ex-defense GDP growth is higher under the Obama administration than during the comparable period of the G.W. Bush administration:
Governor Romney Recalibrates Employment Forecasts
Last May, Governor Romney stated that in a typical recovery, monthly employment increases should be about 500,000 per month [1]. The sheer implausibility of that statement (assessed in this post) has induced him to reduce his estimate (without explanation of the change) to 250,000 per month. [2]. In Figure 1, I provide a plot of the implied path, as well as that from his May statement (which made me laugh for days!). In other words, his forecast has moved from clearly “Heritage Foundation space” to something that seems a bit less implausible, even if not clearly motivated by a specific model
Is this as good as it gets?
Several other new indicators confirm the message from the Q2 GDP report: the U.S. economy continues to grow, but at a discouragingly slow rate.
The July Employment Situation
Today, BLS released data for July. Nonfarm payroll employment growth of 165,000 exceeded expectations of 100,000 (Bloomberg). However, overall, employment indicators continue to rise only slowly.
Current economic conditions
I see both dark clouds and rays of hope.
Some Thoughts on the Employment Release
The employment release for May has raised concern, and rightly so, amongst policymakers. Figure 1 shows that nonfarm payroll employment growth has tailed off to 0.6% m/m, and 0.9% on a three month basis (both annualized, in log differences). Other labor indicators from the household survey are slightly more positive.