Tag Archive: employment

Consumers, Producers, and the Unsettled End of 2020

2021-01-17

U.S. Retail Sales, NSA, Jan 1993 - Jul 2020

The months of November and December aren’t always easily comparable year to year when it comes to American shopping habits. For a retailer, these are the big ones. The Christmas shopping season and the amount of spending which takes place during it makes or breaks the typical year (though last year, there was that whole thing in March and April which has had a say in each’s final annual condition).

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What Did Hamper Growth ‘In A Few Months’

2020-12-18

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2020-12-18

Over here, on the other side of that ocean, the US economy can only dream of the low levels Chinese industry has been putting up this late into 2020. At least those in the East are back positive year-over-year. Here in America, manufacturing and industry can’t even manage anything like a plus sign.

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Polar Opposite Sides of Consumer Credit End Up in the Same Place: Jobs

2020-12-08

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2020-12-08

If anything is going to be charged off, it might be student loans. All the rage nowadays, the government, approximately half of it, is busily working out how it “should” be done and by just how much. A matter of economic stimulus, loan cancellation proponents are correct that students have burdened themselves with unprofitable college “education” investments.

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Don’t Really Need ‘Em, Few More Nails Anyway

2020-12-06

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2020-12-06

Pro forma CES Private Payrolls, 2020-2021

The ISM’s Non-manufacturing PMI continued to decelerate from its high registered all the way back in July 2020. In that month, the headline index reached 58.1, the best since early 2019, and for many signaling that everything was coming up “V.”

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There Have Actually Been Some Jobs Saved, Only In Place of Recovery

2020-12-04

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2020-12-04

The ISM reported a small decline in its manufacturing PMI today. The index had moved up to 59.3 for the month of October 2020 in what had been its highest since September 2018. For November, the setback was nearly two points, bringing the headline down to an estimate of 57.5.

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Good Payrolls Still Say Slowdown

2020-11-09

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2020-11-09

The payroll report for the month of October 2020 was a very good one. This shouldn’t be surprising, perfect BLS publications appear with regularity even during the most challenging of circumstances. Headlines and underneath, everything looked fine last month.

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These Are The Real Huge Jobs Numbers, And They Will Make Your Blood Run Cold

2020-08-24

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2020-08-24

U.S. Unemployment Insurance; Initial Jobless Claims, Mar 2017 - Jun 2020

There is simply no way to spin these figures as anything good. Not just the usual ones were talking about here, but more so some new data that you probably haven’t seen before. Beginning with the regular, it doesn’t matter that the level of initial jobless claims has declined substantially over the past few weeks

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Purchasing Managers Indigestion

2020-08-06

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2020-08-06

Europe ISM Non-Manufacturing Employment, Jan 2017 - Jul 2020

There’s already doubt given how the two major series supposedly measuring the same thing seemingly can’t agree. If the rebound was truly robust, it would show up unambiguously everywhere. But IHS Markit’s purchasing managers indices struggled to get back above 50 in July, barely getting there, suggesting the economy might be slowing or even stalling way too close to the bottom.

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Reality Beckons: Even Bigger Payroll Gains, Much Less Fuss Over Them

2020-07-05

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2020-07-05

What a difference a month makes. The euphoria clearly fading even as the positive numbers grow bigger still. The era of gigantic pluses is only reaching its prime, which might seem a touch pessimistic given the context. In terms of employment and the labor market, reaction to the Current Employment Situation (CES) report seems to indicate widespread recognition of this situation. And that means how there are actually two labor markets at the moment.

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A Second Against Consumer Credit And Interest ‘Stimulus’

2020-06-10

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2020-06-10

Credit card use entails a degree of risk appreciated at the most basic level. Americans had certainly become more comfortable with debt in all its forms over the many decades since the Great Depression, but the regular employment of revolving credit was perhaps the apex of this transformation. Does any commercial package on TV today not include one or more credit card offers? It certainly remains a staple of junk mail.

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It’s Hard To See Anything But Enormous Long-term Cost

2020-04-07

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2020-04-07

The unemployment rate wins again. In a saner era, back when what was called economic growth was actually economic growth, this primary labor ratio did a commendable job accurately indicating the relative conditions in the labor market. You didn’t go looking for corroboration because it was all around; harmony in numbers for a far more peaceful and serene period.

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For Labor And Recession, The Bad One

2019-11-12

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-11-12

Nonfarm Business Sector: Unit Labor Costs 1983-2019

There’s a couple of different ways that Unit Labor Costs can rise. Or even surge. The first is the good way, the one we all want to see because it is consistent with the idea of an economy that is actually booming. If workers have become truly scarce as macro forces sustain actual growth such that all labor market slack is absorbed, then businesses have to compete for them bidding up the price of marginal labor.

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From Friends to Nemeses: JO and Jay

2019-11-08

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-11-08

It was one of the first major speeches of his tenure. Speaking to the Economic Club of Chicago in April 2018, newly crowned Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell was full of optimism. At that time, however, optimism was being framed as some sort of bad thing. This was the height of inflation hysteria, where any sort of official upgrade to the economic condition was taken as further “hawkishness.”

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Monthly Macro Monitor: Doom & Gloom, Good Grief

2019-10-12

by Marcelo Perez

2019-10-12

Economic Growth & Investment, October 2019

When I first got in this business oh so many years ago, my mentor told me that I shouldn’t waste my time worrying about the things everyone else was worrying about. As I’ve related in these missives before, he called those things “well worried”. His point was that once everyone was aware of something it was priced into the market and not worth your time.

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Monthly Macro Monitor: We’re Not There Yet

2019-07-21

by Joseph Y. Calhoun

2019-07-21

I first wrote about the current economic slowdown a year ago and Jeff Snider actually started seeing signs of slowdown in the Eurodollar market as early as May 2018. So, the slowdown we’re in now certainly isn’t a surprise here at Alhambra. I think though that we often forget how long these things take to develop.

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Monthly Macro Monitor: Economic Reports

2019-06-04

by Joseph Y. Calhoun

2019-06-04

Is recession coming? Well, yeah, of course, it is but whether it is now, six months from now or 2 years from now or even longer is impossible to say right now. Our Jeff Snider has been dutifully documenting all the negativity reflected in the bond and money markets and he is certainly right that things are not moving in the right direction.

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Effective Recession First In Japan?

2019-05-16

by Jeffrey P. Snider

2019-05-16

For a lot of people, a recession is two consecutive quarters of negative GDP. This is called the technical definition in the mainstream and financial media. While this specific pattern can indicate a change in the business cycle, it’s really only one narrow case. Recessions are not just tied to GDP. In the US, the Economists who make the determination (the NBER) will tell you recessions aren’t always so straightforward.

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Monthly Macro Chart Review: April 2019

2019-04-09

by Joseph Y. Calhoun

2019-04-09

The economic data reported over the last month managed to confirm both that the economy is slowing and that there seems little reason to fear recession at this point. The slowdown is mostly a manufacturing affair – and some of that is actually a fracking slowdown – but consumption has also slowed.

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Monthly Macro Monitor – August 2018

2018-08-17

by Joseph Y. Calhoun

2018-08-17

The Q2 GDP report (+4.1% from the previous quarter, annualized) was heralded by the administration as a great achievement and certainly putting a 4 handle on quarter to quarter growth has been rare this cycle, if not unheard of (Q4 ’09, Q4 ’11, Q2 & Q3 ’14). But looking at the GDP change year over year shows a little different picture (2.8%).

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Bi-Weekly Economic Review

2018-07-20

by Joseph Y. Calhoun

2018-07-20

This will be a fairly quick update as I just posted a Mid-Year Review yesterday that covers a lot of the same ground. There were, as you’ll see below, some fairly positive reports since the last update but the markets are not responding to the better data. Markets seem to be more focused on the trade wars and the potential fallout. I would also note that at least some of the recent strength in the data is related to the tariffs.

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