April Jobs - Another Report From Bizarro World

On May 2nd the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the April Employment Report. Here is a synopsis of that report.

Nonfarm payroll employment was little changed in April (-20,000), following job losses that totaled 240,000 in the first 3 months of the year, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. The unemployment rate, at 5.0 percent, also was little changed in April. Employment continued to decline in construction, manufacturing, and retail trade, while jobs were added in health care and in professional and technical services.

The establishment data was the 5 consecutive disaster.

Highlights


61,000 construction jobs were lost
46,000 manufacturing jobs were lost
27,000 retail trade jobs were lost

90,000 service providing jobs were added
A whopping 110,000 goods producing jobs in total were lost (higher paying jobs), while mostly lower paying service sector jobs were added.

Birth/Death Model From Alternate Universe

This was a very weak jobs report. But it is even worse when one looks at Birth/Death Model assumptions.

Once again the BLS should be embarrassed to report this data. Its model suggests that there was 45,000 jobs coming from new construction businesses, 72,000 jobs coming from professional services, and a whopping 267,000 jobs in total coming from net new business creation. The only line items in the above chart that are reasonable are manufacturing and resources and mining. The economy has slowed to a standstill and the BLS model still has the economy expanding at a rapid clip.

Repeating what I said last month, virtually no one can possibly believe this data. The data is so bad, I doubt those at the BLS even believe it. But that is what their model says so that is what they report. Just as there is mark to model in the investment world, there is mark to model in the BLS world.

Continued>>> Click on link to see charts...
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2008/05/april-jobs-another-report-from-bizarro.html

I don't believe anything that this administration says.

And sadly typical of this administration.

just say we were more than dis-believing. This report is like the growth report earlier of .6 per cent....baloney....like it's something to cheer about. I think they misplaced the decimal on the latter.

they are begging for people to work the potash mines at $20 an hour and just can't get enough people.

Mosaic is the big potash mine around here and thanks to the commodity traders, their profits are through the roof this last quarter