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October 3, 2008
Jobs, Jobs, Jobs! -- The Employment Situation
By Wade Rousse
As a former trader who often profited from market volatility, the first Friday of every month was always very exciting. Why? On the first Friday of every month at 7:30 am CST, the U.S. Department of Labor releases its Employment Situation Summary Report, better known as the “Jobs Report.” And if there is one report that consistently moves the market, it’s this one.
Earlier this morning, the report revealed that the U.S. lost 159,000 jobs in September. This brings the total number of jobs lost this year to 760,000. Now with 145.3 million people in the U.S. working, what is the significance of a loss of just 159,000 jobs? Well, due to population growth, it takes approximately 100,000 to 125,000 new jobs each month to keep the economy growing at its current rate. Considering that, this negative jobs number is obviously problematic.
There is no doubt we are in an economic slowdown. This morning’s jobs number confirms that, and if the equity markets are truly forward-looking, they’ve been telling us this all year.
Any thoughts out there about the current employment situation?
Posted by Wade at October 3, 2008 3:43 PM
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Comments
Do you think this economic downturn is ridding the economy of inefficiencies? Could the economy just be moving back to its long-run output?
Posted by: Mike Fladlien at October 8, 2008 3:12 AM
i was reading throught some of the posts and i find them to be plumb interesting. pathetic my english is not exaclty the very best. would there be anyway to transalte this into my argot, spanish. it would actually assist me a lot. since i could approach the english interaction to the spanish language.
Posted by: Gonzalo Beaushaw at November 3, 2011 4:02 PM
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