This was one of those things that you knew was going to happen sooner or later. The trend in the growth of nonfarm payroll employment has been heading down for the last couple years. Now we get the first actual decline since 2003. (Read the press release from the BLS.)
More worrying perhaps is that the annual revision knocked off a whopping 191,000 jobs from the original month-to-month changes accumulated during 2007.
Of course this will solidify the case that we are in a recession already or just about to slide into one. Economists are terrible at picking out these turning points in real time. The NBER always waits until a clear picture has been established before making the call, and they have not made that call yet. I wouldn't make the call yet that the recession has begun on the basis of the data we have available now. But the continuing downward trend in job creation is becoming harder to ignore, and the potential for a significant slowdown is very real.
The employment picture is most bleak for teenagers. Unemployement among 16 to 19 year olds has increased from 15% to 18% in the last year.
Among all workers, average and median duration of unemployment are both up. The seasonally adjusted mean duration rose from 16.5 to 17.5 weeks in 2007 and the seasonally adjusted median duration rose from 8.2 to 8.8 weeks.
All in all, not a good way to start the weekend.
This is only the preliminary report. December's was revised from 18,000 to 82,000. I don't know why they even bother with a preliminary, since it often bears no resemblance to the revised report.
Yes it is preliminary. Furthermore, one could argue that -17,000 is essentially no change.
And yes, December was revised up. So were three other months in the annual benchmark revision, for a total of 141,000 more in those months. 8 months went down for a total of 332,000 less--a net loss of 191,000 in the annual revision.
I'd love to be able to put a positive spin on it, but in only 1 month out of the last 7 has job growth exceeded 100,000.
1 out of the last 7. Contrast that with 2005 which saw job growth exceed 100,000 in every single month of the year.
Call this month a fluke if you want. The picture is still not nearly as rosy as it was a couple of years ago.
Not a good start, but I plan on ending it with a patriots victory. If not it really will be a bad weekend.
jobs picture worse than reported. baby boomers like me have taken early retirement in great numbers. From now on i am going to be a total bear.