Great news. Markets are coming off the best January in 15 years. Numbers this morning blew out all expectations. Hopefully (even though I'm dyed red), this will continue. Seems to go against recent warnings from the Fed and CBO about slow job/economic growth this year. This helps Obama obviously, but not as much as it would if it happened this summer. Memories are short; if we print these job numbers June - August the Republicans are in for a world of hurt. I've read conflicting reports on what happened with the LFPR, anyone got some more color? Here are some more details on the job numbers:
- Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 243,000 in January. Private-sector employment grew by 257,000, with the largest employment gains in professional and business services, leisure and hospitality, and manufacturing. Government employment was little changed over the month. (See table B-1.)
- Professional and business services continued to add jobs in January (+70,000). About half of the increase occurred in employment services (+33,000). Job gains also occurred in accounting and bookkeeping (+13,000) and in architectural and engineering services (+7,000).
- Over the month, employment in leisure and hospitality increased by 44,000, primarily in food services and drinking places (+33,000). Since a recent low in February 2010, food services has added 487,000 jobs.
- In January, health care employment continued to grow (+31,000). Within the industry, hospitals and ambulatory care services each added 13,000 jobs.
- Wholesale trade employment increased by 14,000 over the month. Since a recent employment low in May 2010, wholesale trade has added 144,000 jobs.
- Employment in retail trade continued to trend up in January. Job gains in department stores (+19,000), health and personal care stores (+7,000), and automobile dealers (+7,000) were partially offset by losses in clothing and clothing accessory stores (-14,000). Since an employment trough in December 2009, retail trade has added 390,000 jobs.
- In January, employment in information declined by 13,000, including a loss of 8,000 jobs in the motion picture and sound recording industry.
- In the goods-producing sector, manufacturing added 50,000 jobs. Nearly all of the increase occurred in durable goods manufacturing, with job growth in fabricated metal products (+11,000), machinery (+11,000), and motor vehicles and parts (+8,000). Durable goods manufacturing has added 418,000 jobs over the past 2 years.
- Employment in construction increased by 21,000 in January, following a gain of 31,000 in the previous month. Over the past 2 months, nonresidential specialty trade contractors added 30,000 jobs.
- Mining added 10,000 jobs in January, with most of the gain in support activities for mining (+8,000). Since a recent low in October 2009, mining employment has expanded by 172,000.
- Government employment changed little in January. Over the past 12 months, the sector has lost 276,000 jobs, with declines in local government; state government, excluding education; and the U.S. Postal Service.
- The average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls was unchanged in January. The manufacturing workweek increased by 0.3 hour to 40.9 hours, and factory overtime increased by 0.1 hour to 3.4 hours. The average workweek for production and nonsupervisory employees on private nonfarm payrolls edged up by 0.1 hour to 33.8 hours. (See tables B-2 and B-7.)
Yes, things are beginning to look good, but there are a couple of gotchas here.
1) More orders were placed in November and December, due to companies adding to inventory. This should slow down, but we should still see overall growth during 2012. I am expecting that the unemployment rate will tick down to a little under 8% by November, but for the most part, this recovery is going to still be more jobless than what is typical. Still, good news.
2) In the historical data, there is a huge bump in jobs during the spring of last year. This is due to census hiring. When the census workers completed their job, and were let go, it resulted in a jump in unemployment. Both statistics are atypical, and skew the data for last year.
All in all, the way I see it is that this is going to be a bonus for Obama, but he is not out of the woods yet. In picking Romney, Republicans have chosen someone who has an outside chance of picking Obama off. There are a lot of people who don't want Obama in office for various reasons - Being black, instituting Obamacare, for carrying out policies that were instituted by Bush, for being too moderate or even too liberal, among others. While Gingrich would be toast on a stick running against Obama, Romney should be able to make it a fight, and I predict that, for the reasons I have given, this is going to be a close election. I predict, at this time, that Obama will win in a squeaker, and it won't be the economy that is the deciding factor. It will be Obama's relentless pursuit and destruction of al Qaeda infrastructure, and the killing of their leaders. The real irony here is that the Democrats are the ones who lead in foreign policy, when they have historically been very weak in that area. Although I have said Obama should win this, it isn't in the bank. It's his to lose, and the president has between now and November to screw it up.