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| Home Front: Politix |
| Employment up less than expected |
| 2004-07-02 |
| EFL Link is to the BLS site From the Employer Survey: Nonfarm payroll employment continued to rise in June, and the unemployment rate remained at 5.6 percent... Payroll employment increased by 112,000 in June, following larger gains in the prior 3 months. The household survey had an increase in employment of about 259,000. In the previous monthly survey the increase in the payroll employment exceeded the increase in the household employment but in 10 of the previous 12 months, the reverse has been true. What to make of this? Well if you were hoping to encourage the Federal Reserve board to go slow raising the Fed rate, you win bigtime. |
| Posted by:mhw |
| #3 eLarson You are correct in that the labor force went up by about 309,000. Of course remember that these are estimates and the labor force estimate comes from the household survey. The economy has become quite complicated with people holding multiple part time jobs, multiple sole proprietor businesses, etc. That's one reason why some people are suggesting that the bls have a 4 month moving average or some such thing. |
| Posted by: mhw 2004-07-02 10:49:18 AM |
| #2 And it will be adjusted later anyway... as long as the trend is up and stays that way. |
| Posted by: .com 2004-07-02 10:47:51 AM |
| #1 One might ask, how does payroll employment increase by 112,000 in one month, but the unemployment rate stay the same? It sounds like people formerly considered "discouraged" (that is, no longer even trying to find work) are looking again, and are therefore getting lumped into the unemployed bucket again. Pretty good sign that the people see the job market picking up, actually. |
| Posted by: eLarson 2004-07-02 10:41:18 AM |