Temp Hiring Still Leads NFP
By Barry Ritholtz - March 8th, 2010, 12:30PM
Jim Fickett of ClearOnMoney sends us these two charts in response to all the recent chatter that the hiring cycle has changed and NFP no longer follows Temp help hiring.
Jim’s conclusion?
“There has been considerable talk lately that this time is different, but there is no evidence in the recent data to suggest that the correlation is breaking down.”
Temporary Hiring has led NFP hiring this cycle:
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Temp Hiring Leads NFP
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Temp Help Is Highly Correlated with NFP
charts courtesy of ClearOnMoney.com
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March 8th, 2010 at 12:33 pm
We’re all temps now!
March 8th, 2010 at 12:38 pm
Nice concept, but total jobs are still going down. You’re saying that temps are displacing permanent workers, and the number of all workers is going down. “Temps displacing permanent workers and nobody is safe” is not better than “hiring finally up and temps leading the way”. You’re still smoking those green shoots.
March 8th, 2010 at 12:41 pm
For a true “recovery” to take hold, many of these temps will have to convert to full-time “employees” with benefits (including health insurance). In Japan, most of their temps became “permanent” temps. The same song could be playing out here.
March 8th, 2010 at 12:53 pm
I forgot, losing jobs at a slower rate is second derivative speak for being able to draw an upward sloping chart. It looks good to the rubes. The oldies never die. Green shoots and second derivatives … They’re back! Is ‘peak oil’ in the queue? I know – all we need to fix the economy are lower taxes and fewer regulations (nyuk nyuk nyuk). When will we see the 2010 tax rebates? I need a new big screen TV – Obama do you read this blog? Dammit, buy me a TV with an absolutely necessary 2010 stimulus tax rebate and help me put people back to work. Let me do my part.
March 8th, 2010 at 1:04 pm
Don’t temp(t) me!
March 8th, 2010 at 1:14 pm
BR –
Quit trying to propose there is a “business cycle”. Non-sense. Back to bunker to wait for “fair” 600 on SPX.
March 8th, 2010 at 1:16 pm
The usual correlations between temp hiring and NFP may be adversely affected by concerns on the part of employers about all of the potential changes in corporate taxes, payroll taxes, health insurance and employer mandates that may (or may not) come about over the next 12 months.
March 8th, 2010 at 1:34 pm
Good. Any reasonable interpretation of this is that we have at least 6 more months of either zero or low jobs created.
The Census is going to add a ton of jobs over the next few months. But this isn’t going to change the basic facts – no jobs are being created by the private sector yet.
March 8th, 2010 at 1:41 pm
Aren’t Census jobs temporary?
March 8th, 2010 at 1:42 pm
Excuse me, but how the F%# are we going to reliably count everybody in the country if we can’t even reliably count the unemployed??
;-)
March 8th, 2010 at 1:49 pm
people keep looking for the right letter to describe the ‘nascent recovery’..
if you get out your Mirror, it’s “y”..
these new ‘Temps’ are ~permanent..the only ‘benefits’ they’ll be looking fwd: to, are ‘Transportation Credits’ to offset their commuting costs..
http://www.incentivemag.com/msg/incentive/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002726907
worry not about the 2006 Timestamp, the ‘issue’ is Evergreen..
March 8th, 2010 at 1:57 pm
wunsacon Says:
March 8th, 2010 at 1:42 pm
Excuse me, but how the F%# are we going to reliably count everybody in the country if we can’t even reliably count the unemployed??
reply:
———–
They are counted reliably. They are likely counted inaccurately. Thus, you can depend on imprecision and inaccuracy. I especially like the way that total employed goes down a lot, but the rate stays the same, two months in a row. Now that’s slick. I bet that trend is reliable in that more jobs will be lost AND the rate will continue to go down next month. If jobs are ever created again, the unemployment rate will probably return to 5% that same month.
March 8th, 2010 at 2:42 pm
The chart only goes back to 1991. So much for prior relevance. Guess that makes this time exactly the same.
Between stimulus and census temp hiring I would call most any statistic irrelevant to where we truly headed.
March 8th, 2010 at 4:06 pm
Don’t make easy stuff too hard:
You had a recession (or near recession) in 94, a recession in 2001, a recession in 2007-09.
How did temp help do as a leading indicator over that 30 year period?
March 8th, 2010 at 4:19 pm
The data so far is inconclusive. %YOY change in NFP needs to follow Temp help into positive territory. “This time it is different” is about that part of the cycle.
March 8th, 2010 at 7:29 pm
How many of those temps are Census workers? We know the government is hiring a load of temp help at high wages. When those Census workers are done, then where do they go? Will Obama give them a permanent job sweeping up outside the White House?
March 8th, 2010 at 10:52 pm
I work at a university, all the full time positions my department posts now are end dated, which means they end in a year or two.
We’ve also switched so that you don’t get retirement benefits until you’ve been there a year. Not a pension, a 403(b).