Payroll growth slows to 78,000 in May

[swag]

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?siteid=mktw&guid={538EAC95-0D09-404B-87D7-40DF2D9660C5}&dist=bnb

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - Hiring in the United States slowed in May to weakest in nearly two years, the Labor Department reported Friday.

Nonfarm payrolls increased by 78,000, the lowest since August 2003, according to a survey of business establishments.

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate slipped to 5.1% from 5.2%, based on a separate household survey. It's the lowest unemployment rate since September 2001.

Economists were expecting much stronger job growth in May, forecasting an average gain of 186,000, according to the survey conducted by MarketWatch.

. . . mas

[acmavm]

1. Where's all this economic 'growth' that I keep hearing about?

.

[AllegroRondo]

9. China and India

[whistle]

2. Corporations permanently got rid of 86,000 jobs in May

...so that actually leaves Bush's economy 8,000 jobs in the hole!

[rfranklin]

3. We need to make the Bush tax cuts permanent...

They're working so well.

[truthisfreedom]

4. bushco means no jobs.

[swag]

5. This is a profoundly shitty number.

Sweatshop America rolls on.

[Career Prole]

8. And I thought they were lowballing their expectations so that

they could say they got more than they expected when the number came out!

78,000? Man, that sucks!

[ProfessorGAC]

6. And, Job Cuts Are Up!!!

And, that 5.1% number is farcical. The number is MUCH higher than that. It's based upon faulty methodology and more than half of the economics community has been arguing this point for nearly 30 years. But, the politicans find the truth inconvenient.
The Professor

[fasttense]

19. So, do you know what the true unemployment rate is? n/t

[ProfessorGAC]

32. Of Course.

How would i know the number is farcical otherwise? I'd have to have something to compare it to, wouldn't i?

It is a statistical projection which is accurate to within +/-2.5% (relative). So, it's an estimate, but a good one.

The number, based upon 3 month moving averages updated monthly, is based upon the job creation values, the layoff values, the new unemployment insurance applications, retirement rate estimates, and other termination estimates of private industry and gov't workers. This avoids the mistake of having people fall off the UE rolls, and then not get counted, even though they still haven't been able to find a job.

The averaging then smooths the data so that seasonality (part time Holiday Workers, for instance) has less impact on each data point and creates a trendline with a common slope represented as the number of standard deviations from the mean, divided by the square root of 3. This provides a range in which +/- 2.67 sigma provides a range that meets the 97.5% confidence interval.

The actual value is almost exactly 7.4% +/-0.185%. I'm not the only person in the economics field who has come up with this number and several analysts are using different methodology and still come up with comparable #'s.
The Professor
The Professor

[KoKo]

7. heh, heh...Larry Kudlow was breathless on CNBC about these "great

numbers" on unemployment showing how "strong our economy is." He was almost ready to fall out of his chair talking about how great everything is going. Just like Cheney, Rummy and Bushie telling us how great everything is going in Iraq.

I wonder how anyone listens to these people on CNBC...I check in once in awhile and then have to turn it off. Hype.

[swag]

10. Kudlow is a fucking disease. He was more coherent when he was on blow.

[MadisonProgressive]

11. Yep, the economy is ROARING BACK!! (wards)

[Connie_Corleone]

12. "The economy is strong and is getting stronger."

Pitiful.

[swag]

13. Predictably, the Worthless IOU market is spiking on this news.

Yield curve doesn't look too curvy any more.

[rfranklin]

14. Payroll growth slows to 78,000 in May

Payroll growth slows to 78,000 in May
U.S. May unemployment rate falls to 5.1%

By Rex Nutting, MarketWatch
Last Update: 8:31 AM ET June 3, 2005
|

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - Hiring in the United States slowed in May to weakest in nearly two years, the Labor Department reported Friday.



Nonfarm payrolls increased by 78,000, the lowest since August 2003, according to a survey of business establishments.

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate slipped to 5.1% from 5.2%, based on a separate household survey. It's the lowest unemployment rate since September 2001.

Economists were expecting much stronger job growth in May, forecasting an average gain of 186,000, according to the survey conducted by MarketWatch.

The weak hiring will likely encourage bond bulls, who have pushed the yield on the benchmark 10-year note to 3.90% this week. However, the Federal Reserve is likely to remain on its steady path of "measured" interest rate hikes at its meeting at the end of June, economists say.

[cthrumatrix]

15. the US "NEEDS" to keep rates down....this helps the cause

a runaway economy and or INFLATION would require raing rates and "popping the real estate bubble".

They cannnot have that...so this is the "goldi-locks" economy.


As we all know there is NO inflation in our everyday costs...just ask Larry (the con man) Kudlow on CNBC.

[Wright Patman]

18. I believe you've got it

Why should we believe the Labor Department is any less corrupt than any other department of *'s administration?

They have fixed the job data just as they fixed the intelligence in the runup to the Iraq fiasco.

If they had wanted interest rates to go up right now, they would have reported 250,000 new jobs. They just pull a number out of their collective @$$e$.

[fasttense]

16. Aside from the obvious job recession, how can

3.9% return on a ten year note encourage bulls????? I remember days when 10% was average.

[cthrumatrix]

17. if rates "appear stable"...then less risk in buying bonds

The bond market is HUGE....big investors are saying "screw the market"....we don't mind 3.8% for ten years.

With this "analogy"...then we would have shitty growth which helps to keep rates low.

Everything is managed...just like our corporate news.

[othermeans]

20. Payrolls Grow by Just 78,000 in May

WASHINGTON - Employers throttled back hiring in May, boosting jobs by just 78,000, the government reported Friday. The most sluggish pace of payroll expansion in nearly two years dramatized the erratic behavior of the nation's job market



"Clearly there's some disappointment here," said Anthony Chan, senior economist at JP Morgan Asset Management. "But this may be a gift to financial markets and Main Street because the Federal Reserve might not have to be so aggressive in raising rates. In that regard, it is almost a good report."

But on Wall Street, the report disheartened investors. The Dow Jones industrials were off 26 points and the Nasdaq was down 7 points in morning trading

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050603/ap_on_bi_go_ec_fi/economy

[swag]

21. Fed funds futures market now "thinks" the FOMC will stop at 3.5%

http://futures.fxstreet.com/Futures/news/afx/singleNew.asp?menu=economicnews&pv_noticia=1117810032-c84d0f08-28885

and the yield on the Ten is down to 3.86%.

What a fucking mess.

[Pirate Smile]

22. Payrolls Grow by Just 78,000 in May

WASHINGTON - Employers throttled back hiring in May, boosting jobs by just 78,000, the government reported Friday. The most sluggish pace of payroll expansion in nearly two years dramatized the erratic behavior of the nation's job market.

-snip-
The payroll gain of 78,000 followed a hiring spurt of 274,000 in April. Job cuts last month were reported in the categories of manufacturing, leisure and hospitality, and professional and business. Those losses tempered gains elsewhere.

The generally lackluster performance surprised economists. Before the report was released, they were predicting jobs to grow by around 175,000 and the jobless rate to hold steady at 5.2 percent.

"Clearly there's some disappointment here," said Anthony Chan, senior economist at JP Morgan Asset Management. "But this may be a gift to financial markets and Main Street because the Federal Reserve might not have to be so aggressive in raising rates. In that regard, it is almost a good report."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050603/ap_on_bi_go_ec_fi/economy

[trotsky]

23. I just don't understand.

All these magical tax cuts and the economy still can't roar like it did under the stifling tax structure of the Clinton presidency. Who woulda thunk it?

[MADem]

24. Five percent unemployment, but how many discouraged workers?

How many people have dropped off the unemployment rolls and have not yet found work? How many have just given up and are cadging off a relative, living on under the table day work?

I don't see why these economists are "surprised" at all...there's a real malaise out there. But oh, joy! You can buy an overpriced home at low interest rates!

[elehhhhna]

25. "Unemployment" as defined by the Fed is NOT what you think it is.

Comparing today's official numbers vs. the way it was calculated 5-6 years ago is like comparing apples to crocodiles.

[bunkerbuster1]

27. as is comparing it to unemployment figures in other countries.

This is a cue, in this type of conversation, for some wingnut to pop up with "yeah, but in FRANCE, the rate is 10%!"

Haven't found a great source to completely refute this, but obviously the EU nations pay unemployment benefits longer, and continue to count unemployed longer than we do.

[MADem]

29. So true!! And hungry crocodiles, at that! n/t

[Doctor_J]

26. that 5% is so far from the truth as to be classifiable as a lie

they've changed the way unemployment is counted at least twice. Using the real numbers, it's more like 8%

[elehhhhna]

30. I'm guessing it's closer to 10.

[Doctor_J]

28. "The generally lackluster performance surprised economists."

Somehow I don't think Doug Henwood, Paul Krugman, and Jeff Faux were surprised. Only the GOP political hacks that the MSM talks too.

[Doctor_J]

31. Notice how when * wants to "stimulate the economy",

he gives tax cuts to the least needy. When he wants to lecture people on the economy, he addresses the working folk "Get out there and shop!".

repeat after KKKarl..white is black, in is out, left is right

[dchill]

33. And these figures include...

counting flipping burgers as "manufacturing jobs."

*onomics.

[bluestateguy]

34. You need 150,000 a month

You need that number every month to keep up with the new workers entering into the market each month. In the Clinton Administration we averaged between 220,000 and 230,000 jobs a month, sometimes over 400,000 a month.