Karl Denninger on the unemployment data:
Yowza (Jobs Report)
[Comments enabled]
Hoh hoh hoh the knob-twisting game is on this time…
Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 216,000 in December, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 3.7 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment continued to trend up in government, health care, social assistance, and construction, while transportation and warehousing lost jobs.
What y'all smoking over there at the Bureau of Lies and Scams?
The unadjusted household number was -1.395 million. Now granted, the establishment survey counts multiple job holders as having two jobs where the household survey does not ("do you have a job" .vs. "how many people do you employ") but the fact remains that this is a huge delta and, what's worse, 1.485 million people left the labor force in December (e.g. decided to play video games or drink rather than work.)
Historically speaking January is usually the big firing month if you're bullish on the economy you better hope it got shifted this time. If we get another big negative print next month it will be impossible to sustain that claim and what's really not-good-at-all is that the recovery in employment/population percentages from this year was erased entirely, being down five ticks this month. Each tick is about 600,000 jobs when it comes to economic impact on the tax funding structure of the federal government, so if you think we have a bad problem now with the budget well….. oh boy.
Continuing the trend I've noted for a while the people with bachelors who are working, and in the labor force (Table A-4) continues to drop. Since you can't lose educational attainment (even if Claudine Gay should) this means the most-competent are either leaving the labor (retiring, becoming disabled, etc.) or dying, and while on an annualized basis the number is higher over the last three months it has been falling and if that is degree-holders being laid off and saying "screw this, we're not coming back" that portends poorly on a forward basis for the economy as well.
"Strong" was the claim made the media right after the numbers hit the tape, but I think they left a word out of that.
Try strong-smelling.
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=250440