U.S. September Payrolls Rise 57,000; Jobless Rate Holds at 6.1%

[MaineDem]

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000006&sid=aNt7JXIHSfeI&refer=home

Oct. 3 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. businesses added workers to payrolls for the first time in eight months in September as companies gained confidence the economic expansion may be sustained. The gain wasn't enough to lower the unemployment rate, which held at 6.1 percent.

The increase in payrolls was the first rise since January and followed a 41,000 decline in August that was smaller than reported last month, the Labor Department said in Washington. The jobless rate compares with a nine-year high of 6.4 percent reached in June.

Improving consumer and business spending together with rising stock prices and near record-low inventories suggest the economy is in a recovery that will extend into next year, economists said. Corporate profits may keep rising, leading to renewed hiring in coming months that could take some of the heat off President George W. Bush heading into next year's election.

/snip/

One reason the unemployment rate held steady is that a smaller percentage of the population was in the labor force. The labor force participation rate fell to 66.1 percent, the lowest since December 1991. The U.S. economy has now lost 2.6 million jobs since March 2001, the start of a recession that ended in November of that year.

[phillybri]

1. That's a start....

Larry Kudlow is creaming in his pants right now. It's funny how last month, he didn't care about the job losses...

[papau]

19. Some negatives - 2.1 m looking for work over 27 weeks, Part Time up to 5 m

The number of jobless people looking for work for 27 weeks or more rose to 2.1 million last month. Also, people working part time because they can't find full-time work increased to nearly 5 million - per BLS PR release.

Hard to see how the Bush tax cuts have not created jobs as promised, easy to see how they have created huge deficits that will stifle growth in the future and burden our children and grandchildren with debt.

In the services sector, professional and business services added 66,000 new jobs last month, with half of the gain occurring in temporary employment services. Some 29,000 factory jobs were lost, but that was considerably fewer than in previous months - so that is a "good" that we got from the weakening of the dollar and higher exports - not from tax cuts.

[ClintonTyree]

2. Great news...............

57,000 more burger flippers and hotel maids. That'll get the economy rocketing ahead.

[UpInArms]

3. something is wrong with that news story -

here are the numbers:

Oct 03
8:30 AM
Nonfarm Payrolls
Sep -25K -40K -25K -41K -93K

Oct 03
8:30 AM
Unemployment Rate
Sep 6.2% 6.1% 6.2% 6.1% -

this shows that payrolls fell by 25K jobs and that the unemployment rate is 6.2%

see: http://biz.yahoo.com/c/e.html

edited to say that now the above link reflects 57k in the positive on the Nonfarm Payrolls - hmmmm....

[cthrumatrix]

4. annual adjustment perhaps...but no details

I heard on Bloomberg this morning that there would be an annual adjustment to the job numbers.

They said they would go back and count tax records etc....

They shared it could swing a great deal either way.

However...I don't see anyone comment on this number or adjustment

[UpInArms]

7. here are the "adjusted" numbers

Oct 03
8:30 AM
Nonfarm Payrolls
Sep
57k (jobs added)
-40K (loss predicted by Yahoo)
-25K (market expected number)
-41K (last week)
-93K (revised from number - what they reported last week)

[MaineDem]

5. Might those have been the expected numbers?

Everything is eventually revised. What is anyone to believe lately?

[cthrumatrix]

6. We know these numbers are VERY POLITICAL right now

I wish we knew the truth.

Big business's are still laying people off.. The increase was in the service sector...it doesn't show if a $40,000 job is gone and the person now has a $25k/yr service job

Manf. jobs continue to exit.

[UpInArms]

8. the numbers do show a decrease in earnings

Oct 03
8:30 AM
Hourly Earnings
Sep
-0.1% (Sept earnings)
0.2% (Yahoo predicted increase)
0.2% (market expected it to increase)
0.1% (actual August increase)
0.2% (reported August increase - but was revised to actual August increase of 0.1%)

[cthrumatrix]

9. here's what I was talking about...the adjustment

(Dow Jones) The Labor Department announced that its benchmark revision to
payrolls in the benchmark month of March 2003 is a downward adjustment of
145,000. That will be spread out across industries over the 12 months from
March 2003 through February 2004. Details will be released with the May 2004
jobs report in June 2004.

[cthrumatrix]

10. It doesn't make sense..many surprised

Becuase of the weekly claim data going into the end of the month...and then to be surprised.

Time will tell.

[ozone_man]

11. 29,000 manufacturing jobs lost.

It would seem to me loss of manufacturing jobs would be a prime target for Democratic candidates. The spin on the increase of temporary help jobs is that it is a leading indicator to an improving economy, but I'm skeptical.

Very interested to find out what the household survey is about, which shows -52,000 jobs and 68,000 more on unemployment. All these numbers look like they can be manipluated pretty easily.

The article does point out that 150,000 jobs per month must be created to keep up with population increase, so a better gage might be made relative to this number, in which case we are very negative still.

Also, in the last paragraph, another very interesting tidbit regarding the update to this job reporting process that includes state unemployment office data. It appears to be the first month that has been recalculated (March 2003). Doesn't look good.

--snip--

In September, job losses in manufacturing slowed, falling 29,000 compared with the average loss of 54,000 over the past year. Construction added 14,000 jobs.

--snip--

Within professional services, 33,000 temporary help jobs were added, a key leading indicator for more permanent job growth. Health care added 15,000 jobs, below average growth in the sector.

--snip--

The separate household survey, which has indicated a stronger labor market over the past year, weakened in September, showing an employment loss of 52,000 and an increase of 68,000 in unemployment.

The government also published a preliminary revision to its payroll count based on more complete information from state unemployment offices. Rather than increasing by several hundred thousand as expected, the benchmark revision will reduce payroll estimates by 145,000 or 0.1 percent for March 2003.

--snip--

http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?guid=%7B3038D226%2DD25B%2D468B%2DA355%2DF28B18A82826%7D&siteid=mktw

[MiddleRiverRefugee]

12. More Government jobs are gonna happen anyway

...as agencies get their budgets and know how many contract dollars are available.

[underpants]

13. Which means 57,000 lost jobs too

or 57,000 stopped filing claims or had their benefits run out.

[Frodo]

14. No. It's a measure of total employed people

It isn't a measure of the unemployment roles. If it represents people who never had jobs before getting their first jobs, then the total number of unemployed people could be static, but it does mean that there are 57000 more people working than in the previous period.

Of course it says nothing about what type of jobs, or what the average salary is.

So there's a couple months of good news? So what?

Yes, it could be the start of a big recovery (which would probably doom our chances in 2004), BUT BUT BUT notice that it's the first increase since January... Did we have a recovery after January? Or did things go back down again?

[underpants]

15. Okay

:spank:

[diplomats]

16. Didn't consumer confidence just drop sharply?

How big a factor is that? Is that a leading or lagging indicator?

[Frodo]

20. It's a lagging indicator, but so is unemployment

So one going up while the other goes down is a wash.

[Snellius]

17. I wonder how many new jobs are related to defense spending

Bush only points to the tax cuts as the reason for economic growth without ever mentioning the most important factor is not supply-side but good-old government spending. The biggest public works program is the enormous increase in spending for defense, the military, and the war on terrorism.

[Paulie]

18. Do they count National Guarg callups?

Or do they exclude them because companies are required to hold that job for them? Or that their job is now the National Guard? And the people companies hire to fill those positions, are they considered NEW, or do they fill an existing position?

I'm curious how it can skew the numbers.

[freethought]

21. Dumb question here.

I have alot to learn about economics. I have been told that one should take unemployment numbers with a 'grain of salt'. That percentage unemployed only represents those filing claims and not those whose benefits may have run out or young people coming into the
work force who can't get a job. Is that unemployment rate actually lowball? What would be the actual rate of unemployed?