Reuters reports: “Payrolls Disappoint, Factory Orders Jump.”
First the bad news (only bad relative to projections, not in absolute terms)
“The number of workers on U.S. payrolls outside the farm sector last month edged up by 57,000, the Labor Department said, far lower than economists’ forecasts of a 150,000-job gain and well below an upwardly revised climb of 137,000 in October.
And now the good news
A separate report from the Commerce Department showed orders for goods from factories climbed 2.2 percent in October, the fastest pace in more than a year, helped along by strong demand for transportation equipment.”
“In one encouraging sign, the unemployment rate, taken from a survey of households that is separate from the payrolls survey, edged down to 5.9 percent last month, the lowest level since March, from 6.0 percent in October.
The report showed that a large portion of the job gains came from a 64,000 increase in service employment.
The manufacturing sector cut 17,000 jobs, fewer than had been seen earlier in the year, but disappointing given signs of revival at factories.”
“In a positive sign for job-seekers, the number of hours worked per week increased to 33.9 from 33.8 in October. Companies often increase the hours worked by their current staff when they are poised to boost hiring.”
Now here’s a Reuters story on how the jobs data relate to the grocery strike: “Grocery Strikes Skew Employment Picture.”
“Grocery strikes skewed U.S. employment data in recent months, as payrolls were first boosted by temporary hires and then depleted when strikers joined the ranks of the unemployed, the Labor Department said on Friday.
The disputes, including the strike or lockout of 70,000 workers in California, added as many as 20,000 jobs in October, pushing overall payroll gains to 137,000. The healthy increase pleased President Bush, for whom lagging job growth has been a concern ahead of the 2004 election.
But the work stoppages then took a bite out of November payrolls, cutting overall job gains by up to 30,800. As a result, employment increased by only 57,000 — a disappointment for Wall Street, which had expected stronger hiring.
An economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics said the see-saw strike impact is due to the timing of the government’s survey of employers, which managed to count both soon-to-be strikers and their replacements in the first week of the California work stoppage in October.”
Interesting how this was completely an artifact of the way the statistics are prepared. How many other measurement peculiarities impact these numbers that we pay so much attention to?
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