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Strategies & Market Trends : Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mishedlo who wrote (3496)	4/3/2004 12:20:47 PM
From: gregor_us	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 116555

Well Done Mish. Only Gene Epstein in Barrons ...this week "spins" the Jobs Report differently than you, and, in addition, in contrast to ALL his colleagues writing the various other articles in the same issue. (Man, what is up with Gene Epstein? His constant refrain about Econ Stats in general is "hey when you've been watching these for many years, you know what they REALLY mean, OK?"). I encourage everyone to read Epstein's poorly written and incomprehensible article in Barrons about the job numbers. Note carefully how weak and unsupported his opinions are, and that ALL his rebuttals to critical analysis of this Jobs Report, are, in of themselves, nothing but convoluted assertions. They key in this report is the continued falling trend in wage growth (as in: no wage growth.) Your numbers on this issue Mish were echoed in Barrons other columns, today. Regards, LP

To: mishedlo who wrote (3496)	4/3/2004 1:29:44 PM
From: Jon Tara	Respond to of 116555

"Let's start with total employment stats on page 7 .... They use the higher of unadjusted or adjusted whatever suits their purpose?" No. The widely-publicized figure of 308,000 you are referring-to is seasonally-adjusted non-farm employment. This is completely consistent - this is the same figure that is reported in the news reports every month. You're just not looking at the right item in the report. "Table B-1. Employees on nonfarm payrolls by industry sector and selected industry detail Total nonfarm ..... preliminary unadjusted 128,794 129,801 Total nonfarm ....... preliminary adjusted 130,240 130,548 WTF??? UNADJUSTED we gained 100,700 jobs ADJUSTED we supposedly gained 308,000 jobs How can this possibly jive with Table A-1?" Because this is non-farm employment only. It's a subset of total employment. There's nothing inconsistent about it, unless you make the erroneous assumption that changes farm and non-farm employment must be in the same direction and magnitude.

To: mishedlo who wrote (3496)	4/3/2004 2:14:14 PM
From: Haim R. Branisteanu	Respond to of 116555

Thanks mish for explaining

To: mishedlo who wrote (3496)	4/3/2004 9:26:54 PM
From: Wyätt Gwyön	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116555

billmon.org * Despite the big gain in March payrolls, the index of hours worked actually declined slightly, from 99.1 to 99. * The average work week also fell, from 33.8 hours to 33.7 hours. * Average hourly earnings rose a meager 2 cents, from $15.52 to $15.54. Without the seasonal adjustment, the average wage fell by a nickel. * Temporary employment -- sometimes a leading indicator of future hiring trends -- shed 1,800 jobs last month. The bigger artificial pop was probably from construction employment, which declined in February (due to bad weather) and jumped in March (better weather). The seasonal adjustment factors used by the BLS can't always cope with those kind of monthly swings. But still, net, net, if I had to guess, I'd say payrolls probably rose at least 200-250k in March, which would have been a reasonably good month even back during the bubble. However, if I had to guess again, I'd bet that job growth will be a good deal slower in April, and probably in May as well. As a rule, these kind of big monthly pops tend to even out over time.