Payrolls Fell Only 11,000 Last Month, Jobless Rate at 10%

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Payrolls Fell Only 11,000 Last Month, Jobless Rate at 10%
Published: Friday, 4 Dec 2009 * 8:33 AM ET Text Size By: Reuters
U.S. employers cut a far fewer-than-expected 11,000 jobs in November, the smallest decline since the start of the recession in December 2007, government data showed on Friday, strongly suggesting the deterioration in the labor market was in its final stages.



The Labor Department said the unemployment rate fell to 10 percent from a 26-1/2 year high of 10.2 percent in October.

The government revised job losses for September and October to show 159,000 fewer jobs lost than previously reported.

Analysts polled by Reuters had expected non-farm payrolls to drop 130,000 last month and the unemployment rate to hold steady at 10.2 percent.

The data will take some pressure off President Barack Obama, a day after he appealed to the corporate sector, at a jobs summit he hosted, to join in the administration's employment creation efforts.

While the economy has resumed growth after four straight quarters of decline, there are concerns that labor market weakness will prevent the recovery from becoming self-sustaining.

Government spending is largely driving the economy's recovery from the worst recession in 70 years. Since December 2007, when the economy slipped into recession, 7.2 million jobs have been lost, the Labor Department said.

But the pace of layoffs has slowed sharply from early this year.

Analysts believe the bruised job market may be close to turning the corner, with jobs growth likely early next year.


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November's data was the strongest since December 2007, when jobs increased by 120,000.

Payrolls have fallen every month since then.

The improvement in the labor market last month was broad based, with four sectors, including the government, adding jobs.

Manufacturing payrolls fell 41,000 after dropping 51,000 in October. The construction sector shed 27,000 jobs, while the service-providing sector added 58,000 workers.

Professional and business services added 86,000, while education and health services increased payrolls by 40,000. Temporary help employment rose by 52,400.
 
Seriously - considering that it wasn't long ago that we were losing 500,000 jobs a month+, this is an absolutely incredible #.
 
I am trying to decide if I am more shocked or happy with these numbers. The downward revision in the job losses from Sept/Oct is the biggest surprise. Another couple of months of relatively flat numbers in net job change and I will come on board the band wagon that the economy is recovering.

I hate this sentence in the article....

"The data will take some pressure off President Barack Obama, a day after he appealed to the corporate sector, at a jobs summit he hosted, to join in the administration's employment creation efforts."

While it is true in that it will take some pressure off Obama, that detracts from the numbers. Because even though I know the numbers are constantly revised, those who do not normally pay attention to such details may think the downward revision was due to an effort to relieve pressure on Obama.

If you are going to include something like that in an article, it most certainly could have been placed better within the article. The sequence just felt wrong.

That said... most people will probably only see the 10% figure and maybe that can provide some hope/confidence that we are indeed heading in the right direction.
 
I have zero doubt were heading in the right direction. Not even close to sure I agree with the pricetag. Best I can do is profit from where they are going.
 
Topspin said:
I have zero doubt were heading in the right direction. Not even close to sure I agree with the pricetag. Best I can do is profit from where they are going.
Click to expand...

If you have zero doubt, then I think you are WAY to optimistic. With the problems in the credit market persisting, the delinquencies on credit card debt and mortgage debt still rising, with the threat of a backlash in GDP due to the cash for clunkers, with the insanity returning to Wall Street, with the threat of the health care bill (and to a much lesser degree... the cap and trade fiasco)... with all of that... I find it hard to be optimistic... and especially hard to not have serious doubts.

That said, as I mentioned, IF the jobs numbers can remain relatively flat for the next couple of months, that should provide a psychological boost to small business owners who may again start hiring (though they truly do want to see the credit market loosen up a bit too).
 
Superfreak said:
If you have zero doubt, then I think you are WAY to optimistic. With the problems in the credit market persisting, the delinquencies on credit card debt and mortgage debt still rising, with the threat of a backlash in GDP due to the cash for clunkers, with the insanity returning to Wall Street, with the threat of the health care bill (and to a much lesser degree... the cap and trade fiasco)... with all of that... I find it hard to be optimistic... and especially hard to not have serious doubts.

That said, as I mentioned, IF the jobs numbers can remain relatively flat for the next couple of months, that should provide a psychological boost to small business owners who may again start hiring (though they truly do want to see the credit market loosen up a bit too).
Click to expand...

A lot of people will also wait till there's tons of good news in the rear view mirror. I'm not all in but I dumped 40G's of bonds today and bought me some cisco, wfr, dvy, and good ole mcd.
 
Now this is local not national and is very pertinent to me personally but here in the Bay Area it seems businesses feel good but aren't ready to hire yet.


""A quarterly index of Bay Area business confidence has registered its first positive reading in two years. But the brighter outlook captured in a survey being released today by the Bay Area Council may not halt layoffs or spur widespread hiring in the short term.""

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2009/12/03/MNDG1AT9H1.DTL
 
Thedre is always an upswing this time of year. The size of the upswing is what one watches for. It wasn't too good this year, but better than last year, overall. Layoffs are down from this time last year, but Black Friday buying is only up 0.5%. Combine those two numbers and you get an economy that has about reached it's bottom - barring any additional crisis, that is. The current labor pool has reached the level of staying even with demand, which means layoffs will likely level out through the rest of the holiday season. But the lack of a significant increase in buying also indicates there will not be any hiring to speak about in the near future, either.

From what I have seen years past, if holiday and post holiday sales don't see a good return (and 0.5% increase from last year is not a good return so far) then we will likely see a new spate of layoffs in the post holiday months. This could bode dire consequences when adding in the factors of record defaults in personal loans the last few months, as well as increase the possibility of another housing and mortgage crisis.

And let's not forget that 10% unemployment actually means 15%+ are actually out of work, and 17%+ are either not working or significantly under employed. Remember how much the dems harped - correctly I might add - that the unemployment figures touted under Bush (prior to the melt down) were not a good picture of the real unemployment situation? Well, the UE figures are still arrived at the same way, and they still are not an accurate picture of the unemployment situation.
 
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