Tag Archive: household survey

Weekly Market Pulse: A Most Unusual Economy

2022-07-11

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2022-07-11

The employment report released last Friday was better than expected but the response by bulls and bears alike was exactly as expected. Both found things in the report to support their preconceived notions about the state of the economy.

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May Payrolls (and more) Confirm Slowdown (and more)

2022-06-07

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2022-06-07

May 2022’s payroll estimates weren’t quite the level of downshift President Phillips had warned about, though that’s increasingly likely just a matter of time. In fact, despite the headline Establishment Survey monthly change being slightly better than expected, it and even more so the other employment data all still show an unmistakable slowdown in the labor market.

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Neither Confusing Nor Surprising: Q1’s Worst Productivity Ever, April Decline In Employed

2022-05-13

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2022-05-13

Maybe last Friday’s pretty awful payroll report shouldn’t have been surprising; though, to be fair, just calling it awful will be surprising to most people. Confusion surrounds the figures for good reason, though there truly is no reason for the misunderstanding itself. Apart from Economists and “central bankers” who’d rather everyone look elsewhere for the real problem.

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For The Fed, None Of These Details Will Matter

2022-03-06

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2022-03-06

Most people have the impression that these various payroll and employment reports just go into the raw data and count up the number of payrolls and how many Americans are employed. Perhaps the BLS taps the IRS database as fellow feds, or ADP as a private company in the same data business of employment just tallies how many payrolls it processes as the largest provider of back-office labor services.That’s just not how it works, though. In fact,...

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Taper Discretion Means Not Loving Payrolls Anymore

2022-01-10

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2022-01-10

When Alan Greenspan went back to Stanford University in September 1997, his reputation was by then well-established. Even as he had shocked the world only nine months earlier with “irrational exuberance”, the theme of his earlier speech hadn’t actually been about stocks; it was all about money.The “maestro” would revisit that subject repeatedly especially in the late nineties, and it was again his topic in California early Autumn ’97.

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For The Love Of Unemployment Rates

2021-10-12

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2021-10-12

Here we are again. The labor force. The numbers from the BLS are simply staggering. During September 2021, the government believes it shrank for another month, down by 183,000 when compared to August. This means that the Labor Force Participation rate declined slightly to 61.6%, practically the same level in this key metric going back to June.

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ISM’s Nasty Little Surprise Isn’t Actually A Surprise

2021-07-07

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2021-07-07

U.S. ISM Non-Manufacturing PMI, Employment, Jan 2017 - May 2021
Completing the monthly cycle, the ISM released its estimates for non-manufacturing in the US during the month of June 2021. The headline index dropped nearly four points, more than expected. From 64.0 in May, at 60.1 while still quite high it’s the implication of being the lowest in four months which got so much attention.

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Good Payrolls Still Say Slowdown

2020-11-09

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2020-11-09

Pro forma CES Private Payrolls, 2020-2021
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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Who’s Negative? The Marginal American Worker

2020-10-06

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2020-10-06

CPS Household Survey: Civilian Labor Force Level, 2007-2020
The BLS’s payroll report draws most of the mainstream attention, with the exception of the unemployment rate (especially these days). The government designates the former as the Current Employment Statistics (CES) series, and it intends to measure factors like payrolls (obviously), wages, and earnings from the perspective of the employers, or establishments.

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A Second JOLTS

2020-08-11

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2020-08-11

What happens when we are stunned and dazed? We filter out the noise to focus on the bare basics by getting back to our instincts, acting reflexively based upon our deeply held beliefs and especially training. When faced with a crisis and there’s no time to really think, shorthand will have to suffice.

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

2020-07-05

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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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What Did Everyone Think Was Going To Happen?

2020-06-06

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2020-06-06

Unemployment Insurance, Continued Claims, 2017-2020
Honestly, what did everyone think was going to happen? I know, I’ve seen the analyst estimates. They were talking like another six or seven perhaps eight million job losses on top of the twenty-plus already gone. Instead, the payroll report (Establishment Survey) blew everything away, coming in both at two and a half million but also sporting a plus sign.The Household Survey was even better, +3.8mm during May 2020. But, again, why wasn’t this...

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

2020-04-07

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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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Very Rough Shape, And That’s With The Payroll Data We Have Now

2020-01-15

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2020-01-15

Household Survey: Civilian Employment, 2017-2019
The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has begun the process of updating its annual benchmarks. Actually, the process began last year and what’s happening now is that the government is releasing its findings to the public. Up first is the Household Survey, the less-watched, more volatile measure which comes at employment from the other direction. As the name implies, the BLS asks households who in them is working whereas the more closely scrutinized...

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Disposable (Employment) Figures

2019-12-11

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2019-12-11

Establishment Survey; Blowout Payrolls, 2014-2019
If last month’s payroll report was declared to be strong at +128k, then what would that make this month’s +266k? Epic? Heroic? The superlatives are flying around today, as you should expect. This Payroll Friday actually fits the times. It wasn’t great, they never really are nowadays (when you adjust for population and participation), but it was a good one nonetheless.

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The Reluctant Labor Force Is Reluctant For A Reason (and it’s not booming growth)

2018-01-10

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2018-01-10

Labor Market Growth Rates, 1968 - 2017
In 2017, the BLS estimates that just 861k Americans were added to the official labor force, the denominator, of course, for the unemployment rate. That’s out of an increase of 1.4 million in the Civilian Non-Institutional Population, the overall prospective pool of workers. Both of those rises were about half the rate experienced in 2016.

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Defining The Economy Through Payrolls

2017-12-15

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2017-12-15

Labor Market Growth, 1968 - 2017
The year 2000 was a transition year in a lot of ways. Though Y2K amounted to mild mass hysteria, people did have to get used to writing the date with 20 in front of the year rather than 19. It was a new millennium (depending on your view of Year 0) that seemed to have started off under the best possible terms. Not only were stocks on fire at the outset, the economy was, too.

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Four Point One

2017-11-09

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2017-11-09

US Establishment Survey Payrolls, Jan 2010 - Jul 2017
The payroll report for October 2017 was still affected by the summer storms in Texas and Florida. That was expected. The Establishment Survey estimates for August and September were revised higher, the latter from a -33k to +18k. Most economists were expecting a huge gain in October to snapback from that hurricane number, but the latest headline was just +261k.

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The Payroll Report To Focus On Is August’s, Not September’s

2017-10-13

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2017-10-13

US Average Weekly Earnings, Jan 1990 - 2016
The hurricanes didn’t disappoint, causing major damage at least to the BLS. Precisely how much the statistics were affected by the disruptions in Texas and Florida really can’t be calculated, not that everyone won’t try. It makes this month’s payroll report a Rorschach test of sorts. You can pretty much make it out to be whatever you want.

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The Anti-Perfect Jobs Condition

2017-06-10

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2017-06-10

Unemployment Rate, January 2013 - May 2017
The irony of the unemployment rate for the Federal Reserve is that the lower it gets now the bigger the problem it is for officials. It has been up to this year their sole source of economic comfort. Throughout 2015, the Establishment Survey improperly contributed much the same sympathy, but even it no longer resides on the plus side of the official ledger.

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