Generally speaking, last Friday’s jobs report was nothing to brag about - even though Barack Obama did it anyway - but the Wall Street Journal found some “hidden good news.” Here are a couple of quotes and my comments:
“Sure, the net payroll number was weak. But there were signs companies were seeing demand for their products, and needed more labor to meet it.”
We shall see in the coming months if this is true, meaning we should see more jobs created in July and August.
“Job growth may not be robust, but it’s fairly evenly spread across the economy. Manufacturing added 11,000 jobs. Health care added 11,400. Leisure and hospitality added 13,000. Construction added 2,000, although that was dwarfed by the 35,000 jobs lost the month before. Retailers cut 5,400 jobs, but wholesalers added 8,800.”
This is good to hear because it means that we’re better protected from the recent economic slide from China and India and the Euro crisis.
“Two months of lousy job news might have been expected to drive job-seekers to the sidelines. That didn’t happen. The number of “discouraged” workers — those not looking for work because they don’t think they can find any — dropped to a new low for the recovery.”
The article concludes that these positives make a good “foundation to build on” for the labor market.
Forbes also cautions that this job report is just an estimate and final revisions will be issued in subsequent reports by Bureau of Labor Statistics. These revisions can swing by as much as 100,000! That’s a pretty huge swing, which means we just have take June’s initial report with a grain of salt until final numbers come out in July and August.
