We’ve been dwelling here quite a bit on the bleak incoming housing data. But I have to admit that I’m not seeing that spilling over so far into some of the other key economic indicators.
Category Archives: employment
Just how bad is the labor market?
Nonfarm payroll employment growth is 1.3% (12 month log difference). Civilian employment — adjusted to conform to the establishment payroll series — is 1.0%. These are the numbers for August 2007? Almost. Payroll employment growth was actually 1.2%. Those figures are for February 2001, the month immediately preceding the last NBER-defined recession.
Jobs numbers disappoint
Was that the other shoe we just heard drop?
Weak employment reports
Wall Street took this as a weak jobs report, and it may be worse than people think.
Recession Indicators: Where Do They Stand?
More ideas on construction employment
Here are some of the thoughts from other analysts about why reported residential construction employment has not been plummeting.
Puzzling over the employment report
How to reconcile the latest solid employment numbers with other indicators of economic weakness?
Reconciling the BED, CES, and birth/death employment data
There has been some discussion recently about discrepancies between different government estimates of the state of the labor market. Although a legitimate issue has been raised, there has also been a bit of misunderstanding.
Diverging Trends in Recent Employment Measures
Little noted is the fact that, while May’s payroll employment release surprised on the upside, the household series were providing conflicting indications.
Don’t worry, be happy
Yesterday the Bureau of Economic Analysis told us that first-quarter real GDP grew not at the anemic 1.3% annual growth rate as was originally reported in the “advance” estimate given to us at the end of April, but instead was a barely-positive 0.6% as now claimed in the “preliminary” 2007:Q1 estimates. So what’s worse than we thought?