Suitably Flip

On That "Good" Jobs Number

The employment headline looks good better than expected this morning.  103,000 jobs created in September, versus expectations of 60,000.  And August's zero was revised up to 57,000.  The unemployment rate didn't fall from 9.1%, but at least it didn't rise further.

But there's a lot of noise in these numbers.  Ed at Hot air notes that the 103,000 includes the return of 45,000 telecom workers who were on strike in August.

So while the updated data are better across the board than the unrevised prior months' numbers and the September consensus (red vs. blue lines below), normalizing August and September for the strike (green line) paints a different picture.  It not only shows September job growth slightly below expectations, but it betrays a much uglier trend - not a rebound, but a swift and steady decline in job growth in recent months.

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On That "Good" Jobs Number

The employment headline looks good better than expected this morning.  103,000 jobs created in September, versus expectations of 60,000.  And August's zero was revised up to 57,000.  The unemployment rate didn't fall from 9.1%, but at least it didn't rise further.

But there's a lot of noise in these numbers.  Ed at Hot air notes that the 103,000 includes the return of 45,000 telecom workers who were on strike in August.

So while the updated data are better across the board than the unrevised prior months' numbers and the September consensus (red vs. blue lines below), normalizing August and September for the strike (green line) paints a different picture.  It not only shows September job growth slightly below expectations, but it betrays a much uglier trend - not a rebound, but a swift and steady decline in job growth in recent months.