Jobs Report

When it comes to the DOLLAR I go with Larry Kudlow's opinion.:cool:
Monday, May 24, 2010

Washington Certainly Isn't Helping Matters

It’s been a rough ride for stocks since the recent April high. Last week’s trading wasn’t pretty, and today’s 126-point drop late in the afternoon certainly didn’t help any. That said, at around $90 a share for the next year, stocks are starting to look pretty cheap after this correction. Maybe it's time to jump in, even with all this blood in the street.

Maybe.

Leave it to Washington to make matters worse. We’ve got a big, fat tax hike on private investment partnerships and foreign earnings of U.S. companies staring at us right now. Thanks Washington. That will of course ensure that we have less private investment. What a neat idea.

Let’s be clear about the consequences of tax hikes: They are nothing but a negative for future growth. Never forget: Growth is the key.

The best social policy we can develop is a capital formation spur that will supply jobs to those that need them. For dignity, to raise the human spirit, and to help folks produce and spend. All of these left-wing, anti-growth, “spread the wealth” attacks on opportunity and economic freedom are Europeanization—something we must devoutly avoid.

One plus I am highlighting right now is the greenback. King Dollar’s rise means a lower energy tax cut. This is a very good thing for American consumers and retailers. It’s also good for industrials, manufacturing and transports. And don’t forget about lower mortgage rates.

Across the pond, this whole Greece and European debt crisis mess remains largely unresolved. Fear is still out there. And while Germany's parliament voted “yes” to the trillion-dollar rescue package, France won’t vote until May 31st. Heck, Italy and Spain haven't even set parliamentary authorization voting dates yet. Huh? Hello? Anybody home? Don’t they know there's a crisis?

As far as the credit markets are concerned, the short-term funding markets for bank-to-bank lending are still stressed with Libor and the TED spread still widening. Not good. Banks are afraid. No one wants to lend. Incidentally, Libor, for three-month loans in dollars recently rose above 0.5 percent for the first time since July 24th. I wouldn’t call that a healthy signal.

Look, I’m still convinced the Europeans need a big-blanket, bank debt guarantee. That would buy them time to get through this chaos, and on the way to much needed, alleged, welfare-state cost cutting. That said, I’m not convinced Greece could even paint the Parthenon on time, let alone afford the paint.
http://kudlowsmoneypolitics.blogspot.com/
 
This is a cogent analysis of implications to US economy and employment-due to "safehaven" dollar and fallen/parity euro. Scary stuff indeed. Europeans will snag the jobs and companies with European employees, will snag market share.

http://www.safehaven.com/article/16911/us-employment-may-be-hammered-by-euro-plunge

A strong dollar can potentially pummel US employment in four distinct ways.

One. Companies that employ US workers just likely lost substantial international market share to companies that employ European workers, not only in Europe but around the rest of the globe. It may take six months or a year before the full damage occurs and makes it through official reporting channels, but the effects are already likely beginning to occur today in terms of contracts and purchases that are still being negotiated - or are being suddenly renegotiated. This substantial loss in market share of course translates to large numbers of US jobs being lost.

Two. Companies that employ US workers to make products for the domestic US market are likely to lose substantial market share to cheaper European imports over the coming year. With globalized trade, a major change in the competitiveness of your workforce necessarily can hit your domestic market every bit as hard as international markets. Again, this substantial loss in market share translates to large numbers of US jobs being lost.

Three. The strong dollar leading to decreased competitiveness for US workers (through no fault of their own) means that "job flight" is likely to return with a vengeance. Companies that employ American workers, whether they are US companies or foreign-owned companies, are not going to passively accept a major, perhaps even bankruptcy-inducing loss in market share. Naturally, they are going to aggressively do everything they can to try to protect their market share in markets around the world.

That will likely mean a rapid shift in jobs inside of multinational corporations, as plants and offices employing US workers are closed down, with the jobs shifted to new or existing subsidiaries and suppliers abroad, particularly in Europe. If the euro plunges further versus the dollar, this migration of jobs within companies could happen fast and hard, dealing a third blow to American workers.
Four. When the sales "pie" to be split is shrinking - so is employment. If American workers are being underbid by European workers for shares of a shrinking pie [global economy], this is a devastating one-two combination for total US employment. This also creates a feedback loop as falling US employment lowers US sales, which leads to further job losses.

An artificially high dollar means that wages must fall further than would otherwise be needed, to overcome the cost advantage enjoyed by Europeans. This means jobs aren't created, or that they are at such low wages that discretionary spending is near non-existent. which then leads to lower sales, which lead to further job losses.
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Well (unemployment rate) they are fixin to go back up, especially within the NASA community. This is due to our potentate’s decision to chop the Constellation space program. It is hard for us within NASA (contractors and Civil Servants) to understand how cavalier Obama is when it comes man space flight and all the spin offs from it. :mad:
 
Jobless claims fall to lowest level in 4 weeks
Unemployment claims fall by 11,000 to 448,000, as job market slowly improves

LINK

Highlights:

:)The number of Americans filing claims for unemployment benefits dropped for a second consecutive week, further evidence that the job market is slowly improving.

:oThe four-week average for claims edged up slightly to 462,500, still above the level that economists believe signals sustained improvements in the job market.

:DCompanies in the Standard & Poor's 500 index have reported 76 percent higher operating earnings than a year ago -- on pace to be the biggest year-over-year increase ever, according to S&P analyst Howard Silverblatt. Nearly half the companies in the index have reported earnings so far.
 
US jobless numbers hide scale of problem

Te Ramos is a 60-year-old former construction worker who is now dependent on free food pantries and a soup kitchen. See Video

Business reporter, BBC News, New York
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The headline number only reveals a small part of the problem.

Excerpt:
Whether they're "unemployed," "marginally attached" or "discouraged," they're all still suffering in what President Obama's economic advisor Larry Summers recently called the "human recession".
And while their lack of a job may not be counted in the headline numbers, come the November mid-term elections, their votes will be. {Read all}
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8499693.stm
 
James48843 said:
I'm hearing a whisper number of + 5,000.

We should know shortly.

If it's below that, I think today is going to be bloody.
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I had mentioned that briefing.com's estimate was for a loss of 40K jobs, so I was thinking expectations were very low. I was hoping we'd see a positive number but I thought anything within -50K would be a "shew!".
 
Birchtree said:
The private household survey numbers showed job improvement of 541,000 jobs - this is the important number that reflects the small employer. November nfp were revised up to 64,000 from 4,000. There will be gains.
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Gains? Intraday...close of day...short term...long term...? I know that with dividend re-investment you will always make money long term and I do this in my personal accounts...but with TSP?

If the market is responding to jobs numbers then yesterday was a sell the news and sell the rumor and today should be buy the news. We aren't seeing that, at least not yet. I'm waiting for the dust to settle from all the bulls and bears so I can see better.

Good luck to you, Mr. Semi-permabull!
 
I'm sorry to say that I just really don't trust the Governent anymore! :worried:

MISH'S
Global Economic
Trend Analysis

2010 Census Hiring Employment Scam




After 24 consecutive months of reported establishment survey job losses, Bloomberg columnist Timothy Homan reports that a massive surge in Census Jobs May Jump-Start U.S. Employment Rebound in 2010.
The 2010 census couldn’t have come at a better time for the U.S. economy. The government will hire about 1.2 million temporary workers in the first half of the year to administer the decennial population count, possibly providing a bridge to gains in private employment later in the year.

The surge will probably dwarf any hiring by private employers early in 2010 as companies delay adding staff until they are convinced the economic recovery will be sustained. Money earned by the clipboard-toting workers going door-to-door to verify the government population survey is likely to be spent, giving the economy an extra lift.

“It’s a short-term stimulus program in which the government’s injecting money into the economy through additional paychecks,” said Dean Maki, chief U.S. economist at Barclays Capital Inc. in New York, who projects that 2.5 million more Americans will be working at the of the year. “This will support consumer income during those months.”

The stimulus bill President Barack Obama signed in February and additional funding by Congress provided enough money to hire 1.4 million Americans in total for the census, almost three times as many as in 2000. About 160,000 were already employed last year to do preliminary work.

The Census Bureau anticipates hiring about 181,000 workers from January through March and about 971,000 in the following three months.

The economy may add about 700,000 jobs in May alone, mostly because of the census, said Nigel Gault [chief U.S. economist at IHS Global Insight]. Even Maki’s more optimistic assessment of the employment outlook means the U.S. may take years to recover the 7.2 million jobs lost since the recession began in December 2007.

By the end of the year the jobless rate will fall to 9.7 percent, according to the median estimate of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. The unemployment in December held at 10 percent.​
Pray tell why does it take 1.4 million Americans to conduct a census, 3 times as many as in 2000?

If full employment is the goal and all this hiring is a good thing as Homan suggests, let's hire 5 million census workers. Indeed, why not establish a program where someone is automatically employed by the census bureau the moment they apply for unemployment benefits?

In case those fine ideas will not fly, let's simply reduce the number of hours each census employee works. We can easily triple the number of census jobs from 1.2 million to 3.6 million if the number of hours each employee works is reduced by two-thirds.

President Obama can brag about creating a whopping 3.6 million jobs that way. [more]

http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2010/01/2010-census-hiring-employment-scam.html
 
The private household survey numbers showed job improvement of 541,000 jobs - this is the important number that reflects the small employer. November nfp were revised up to 64,000 from 4,000. There will be gains.
 
Next month's Job numbers may be effected by 1M Census workers to be hired starting in Feb?:worried:
The Best Life

How to Apply for Those 1,000,000 Census Jobs

By Philip Moeller

Posted: December 1, 2009

The prospect of up to a million temporary jobs on the 2010 U.S. Census is drawing lots of attention in today's job-starved marketplace. So, while most jobs won't begin until the spring, it is not too early to add your application to the growing flood of job seekers contacting local Census offices. The jobs—temporary and requiring flexible hours—are perfect for many retirees. By their nature, the jobs will be based close to where you live, and your knowledge of the local community will be a plus.

[See Best Affordable Places to Retire.]
Traditionally, census jobs have been a great fit with retirees, says Wendy Button, chief of the decennial branch at the U.S. Census Bureau. "We've always relied a lot on them—they are really dependable workers." However, retirees will have a lot of competition from among millions of unemployed Americans. Temporary jobs for the 2000 Census often went begging but not so this time around. Of course, the national unemployment rate was 4.1 percent in late 1999, compared with 10.2 percent this past October.

Already, Button says, it's clear that the bureau's jobs are in high demand. "We're seeing the skill set [among applicants] is much higher for these temporary, than we've ever seen before." Demand for positions has appeared so strong, in fact, that the bureau reportedly cancelled a planned national advertising campaign to find temporary employees. Even though most jobs won't begin until next spring, and people won't be notified until February, Button urges people to apply early. [more]
http://www.usnews.com/money/blogs/t...01/how-to-apply-for-those-1000000-census-jobs
 
The Labor Department said the unemployment rate fell to 9.7 percent from 10 percent in December.

However, employers cut 20,000 jobs last month, more than the 5,000 economists expected, according to Thomson Reuters.

Economists forecast the unemployment rate would rise to 10.1 percent.

The "underemployment" rate, which includes part-time workers looking for full-time work and discouraged workers, fell to 16.5 percent from 17.3 percent. Some analysts say that is a better representation of the job market than the unemployment rate

Ahead of the opening bell, Dow Jones industrial average futures rose 17, or 0.2 percent, to 9,996. Standard & Poor's 500 index futures rose 0.60, or less than 0.1 percent, to 1,062.30, while Nasdaq 100 index futures rose 6.75, or 0.4 percent, to 1,741.50.

Worries about unemployment and the economic recovery have sent stocks sliding over the past three weeks, including a plunge Thursday that took the Dow down 268 points. Investors are looking for signs that the economic rebound can be sustained. An improving jobs market would provide such relief.

The government said last week the economy grew at an annual rate of 5.7 percent during the fourth quarter. However, most of that growth came from factors that provide only a temporary boost to the economy, such as companies restocking low inventories.

The latest drop in stocks reflects concerns three members of the euro currency bloc -- Greece, Spain and Portugal -- will have trouble tightening budget controls to manage mounting deficits, helping to derail a recovery in Europe.

Stocks initially declined last month after China said it would rein in loose bank lending standards to cool its economy and avoid speculative bubbles. President Barack Obama's calls for tighter regulations on U.S. banks then added to investors' concerns.

Overseas markets all sold off following the sharp declines in the U.S. on Thursday.

As stocks have tumbled, demand for safer investments is rising. The dollar strengthened Friday, while Treasury bond prices were mixed. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves opposite its price, rose to 3.62 percent from 3.61 percent late Thursday.

Gold prices fell. Oil rose 18 cents to $73.32 a barrel in premarket electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Overseas, Japan's Nikkei stock average fell 2.9 percent, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng tumbled 3.3. Britain's FTSE 100 fell 1.4 percent, Germany's DAX index dropped 1.2 percent, and France's CAC-40 tumbled 2.4 percent.
 
COOKIN' Da BOOKS?:worried:

Unemployment Rate in U.S. Declined to 9.7% in January (Update1)

Payroll Forecasts
Payrolls were forecast to increase by 15,000, according to the median estimate of 85 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. Estimates ranged from a decrease of 100,000 to a gain of 100,000. The jobless rate fell from 10 percent in December. It was projected to hold there. Forecasts ranged from 9.8 percent to 10.3 percent.
In early 2009, the Obama administration’s economic advisers forecast the $787 billion stimulus plan would keep unemployment below 8 percent.
Employment declined a revised 150,000 in December and increased 64,000 a month earlier. The revisions subtracted 5,000 from payroll figures previously reported for those two months.
Government payrolls decreased by 8,000 in January. State and local governments reduced employment by 41,000 during the month, while the federal government added 33,000. The increase at the federal level reflected in part the hiring of temporary workers to conduct the 2010 census.
The Labor Department today also issued the annual benchmark update showing the economy lost 930,000 more jobs than previously estimated in the 12 months ended March 2009. [more]
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aFvLQKf6GQsY&pos=1
 
James48843

James48843

Well-known member
I'm hearing a whisper number of + 5,000.

We should know shortly.

If it's below that, I think today is going to be bloody.

Hang on. It may be too late to bail out anyway.
 
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