Comments on: Seasonally Adjusting Unemployment

By: michaeld

michaeld — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:43:01 +0000

I believe the best way to approach this for those over 50 is focus on what it is you know and when done that much younger people did not have a chance to do yet, due to lower number of years employed.

But when all else fails, it makes sense to at least spend more time to manage your retirement accounts, and make up for the lost income, while you are waiting for the next job interview.

Yes, stocks have become much more expensive,and may consolidate a bit from where they are now.

However, using a good market timing system can help an investor profit both from the upside and downside of this market.

Consider http://invetrics.com

Its daily DJIA index trading signal is up a respectable 68% for the year (as of November 1, 2009) and it is free of charge for individual investors.

By: vaughn

vaughn — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:59:28 +0000

“Like the NAR data before it, the NFP data suggests that the usual drop off was less than expected.”

i’ve been gone a while but,…when did the NAR acquire street cred with you barry??
and yep, i do believe NFP numbers are also heavily “massaged”….
so many ways to count the uncounted….such a wide spread between u3/u6

By: bsneath

bsneath — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:06:02 +0000

This is decidedly a blue collar recession. Over the past 12 months unemployment increased only 1.6% for workers with a college degree, but it increased about 5% for all others. One could say that the impact of the recession on blue collar worker job losses has been three times greater than for college educated workers.

In October, the unemployment rate for college educated actually dropped 0.2% to 4.7%.

For other groups the unemployment rate ranges from 15.5% (no high school diploma) to 9.0% (some college or AA degree). Unemployment for these groups all increased from Sept. by 0.4% to 0.5%.

Do you suppose the college educated folks may be taking retail jobs that normally would go to others?

By: sjankis630

sjankis630 — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:41:33 +0000

Bruce,
I too have been noticing more layoffs from some companies.
Sprint to layoff additional 2,500 by year end. http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSN0927685920091109
I heard that Sprint claims not to need as many workers on their customer support because their product is so good …..

By: HCF

HCF — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:33:56 +0000

The Feds are pumping money into the unproductive parts of the economy: autos, real estate, and banking. The assumption is that that “stimulates” the economy back to health. In reality, it’s a zero sum game. The subsidies pumped into unproductive industries is in essence stolen from actual productive parts of the economy, pushing the timeframe for recovery OUT. Right now, we’re just putting a fresh coat of paint on a house destroyed by an earthquake. Of course policymakers will never learn because we’ll just re-elect them again the next time around…

HCF

By: Another data note: Employment and Seasonal Adjustments « World of Discourse

Another data note: Employment and Seasonal Adjustments « World of Discourse — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:30:14 +0000

[...] do. However, today I’m going to quibble with him (and, via proxy, Floyd Norris) over their interpretation of Non-seasonally adjusted Non-Farm Payroll data. If you hadn’t heard, the seasonally adjusted payroll data from the household survey [...]

By: The Curmudgeon

The Curmudgeon — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 18:12:57 +0000

Why worry about jobs? Just cut a few more employers like GM, GMAC, Chrysler, BAC, Citi, et al., a few more of Uncle Sugar’s checks, and employment will be fine. Of course, it helps in getting the subsidy if the employees whose wages are being subsidized are having a nice little slice of those wages gathered together and returned to the politicians that approved the subsidies.

Of course, it doesn’t help employees that don’t concentrate their power and resources thusly, which is why there will surely be more such arrangements in the future.

Soon enough, all economic decisions will be purely political.

By: cortezj29

cortezj29 — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:29:48 +0000

For the past decade, it has seemed to me that the “Holiday Season” typically has the greatest number of pink slips versus any other time of the year. There is a Catch-22 going on in the economy – Businesses are cutting jobs and/or hours worked to improve their bottom line. However, the macro effect of many businesses cutting jobs and hours is that real revenue growth becomes impossible as the wealth of the consumer (derived from people with income) declines. Sure, businesses have the opportunity to tap into international markets but other nation don’t has the consumer driven culture that drove the American economy for decades.

By: tsk tsk

tsk tsk — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:09:59 +0000

A lack of jobs is one concern but hours worked is still the main concern for me. People are still being asked (ahem, told) to take unpaid time off and taking pay cuts. Sometimes the pay cuts come with a cut in working hours and sometimes not. Anyone out there have thoughts on whats going to happen when all of these newly minted lawyers/MBAs/PhDs that have been recently been deferred (but are still being paid) are finally released because there’s no work for them?

Its so simple, a revenue drop (wages) with increasing costs (taxes, fees, bills, mandatory insurance, students loans) will doom families throughout the country. Family budgets are just like the financials of companies: You can only create so much bottom line ‘growth.’ Real growth, long term growth comes from the top line.

By: Bruce in Tn

Bruce in Tn — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 16:28:53 +0000

By the way, CR, Roubini, other malcontents have opined repeatedly that this would be either a jobless or as the wags say, a job-less recovery for many, many months..now the Fed is finally recognizing that fact…

Rising equity markets in the face of prolonged severe joblessness….not a problem for our hero, Bernankeman….