Published on FXDD (http://forex.fxdd.com)
Forex News: NFP -80,000 Unemployment Rate 5.1%
By Greg Michalowski
Created Apr 4 2008 - 7:31am

Revisions are worse with the last month going to -76,000 from -63,000

Pieces:

Construction -51,000
Manufacturing -48,000
Financial  - -5,000
Governement +18,000
Health and Educ  +42,000
Leisure and Hosp  +18,000

Analysis: 

  • The construction (-51,000 versus -37,000 last month)and manufacturing (-48,000 versus -46,000 last month) did show the weakness expected from the preview. 
  • Financial sector jobs declined but were better than last month.  -5,000 versus -11,000 last month.
  • Government came back down to the trend growth at +18,000.  This makes more sense than the revised +33,000 figure last month.  
  • Leisure and Hospitality gained 18,000 after 20,000 last month.  This industry still remains supported but I am skeptical going forward.  
  • Health and Educ remained the bright spot in the industry sectors showing a gain of 42,000 jobs versus 40,000 last month.  This is consistent with aging demographics.
  • Trade and Transportation which includes such things as Retail Trade, Auto dealers, Electronic stores, Department Stores, etc and Air transportation, rail transportation, truck transportation improved from -55,000 jobs to -20,000 jobs.  Although negative, not accelerating the decline.  
  • The unemployment rate remains still relatively low at 5.1%

It seems to me that job losses are job losses.  You can spin that it is not as bad as it could be, and it isn't looking back at other slow growth/recession periods, but the consumer is not getting better. Balance sheets are getting hit and any decline in employment is bad for the consumers.  This should contribute toward continued negative growth going forward and hopes of 2nd half rebounds may get pushed further toward 2009 as the trend of job losses become the norm not the expection.  Three months and counting.    

 

 


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