Nonfarms Payrolls: Surprisingly Bad - Or Was It?

How awful was today's non-farm payrolls report?

Let's start with the bad news:

• Nonfarm payrolls for October fell 190,000, which is worse than the decline of 175,000 that had been widely forecast.
• Job losses for the previous month were upwardly revised to reflect nonfarm job losses of 219,000.
• The unemployment rate surged to 10.2%, which is up from 9.8% and higher than the 9.9% that was widely forecast. It also marks the highest unemployment rate since 1982.
• The manufacturing sector saw payrolls drop by 61,000. This is worse than the 45,000 jobs lost in the prior month.

But not everything was awful. There was some good news buried in there as well:

• A drop of 190,000 is bad but it is still an improvement over the previous month's 219,000
• Average weekly hourly hours were unchanged at 33.0, which is a bit below the 33.1 that had been forecast. At least there was no decrease.
• Average hourly earnings increased 0.3% month-over-month, which is stronger than the 0.1% monthly increase that had been expected.
• Less jobs were cut in October than the previous month in the following sectors: builders, financial firms and service industries which include banks, insurance companies, restaurants and retailers
• Temporary workers rose by 34,000, the first gain since December 2007. Temp workers are the first to be brought back after a downturn so we can hope this signals that we are nearing the beginnings of a recovery in the job market.

Today's report confirms that it will be a tough slog before the job market fully returns to health.

Today's report also confirms that the "less bad" scenario continues to apply. But I'll take "less bad" over "worse" any day.

Comments

[j-dub:]

If I start off with 100 men in my army and on the first day 9 die and the second day 8 die and the third day 7 die and the fourth day 8 die and the fifth day 8 day and so on and so on until there's only 2 men left.
That day both are shot and killed. Do I report back to my general that "Only 2 were killed today. So things are improving."
And so go with the "less bad" cult...............

I am watching the news one day, and I hear 19 people were shot and killed. And so goes for the next year. A year later I hear that only 14 people were shot and killed. Do I get excited and start singing and dancing? Well, if the newscasters were telling me constantly that 14 is better than 19 and that means maybe we'll have only 5 dead in a near future crime scene. Maybe that would rub off on me and I would post an article why 14 dead could be considered good? But the news wouldn't do that, BECAUSE THEY HAVE NO ECONOMIC MOTIVES TO DO SO, UNLIKE THE WALL STREET PUMPERS AND MEDIA SCHILLS.

No matter how you slice it, THERE IS ONLY ONE WAY TO LOOK AT THE EMPLOYMENT NUMBERS, U3. U6, U7 OR SGS. THEY WERE TERRIBLE. THERE IS NO POSITIVES, SO PUT THE KOOL-AID DOWN!!!

(It's amazing what a phony stock market rally can do to trick the mind)

Nov 06 11:03 AM