Blue World Employment Situation Report Analysis 11-04-2011

Blue World Employment Situation Report Analysis

Release Date:  Usually the first Friday of each month

Release Site: www.bls.gov

Market Sensitivity: VERY HIGH

Management Value: VERY HIGH

Friday, November 04, 2011

Brain surgery is not rocket science to a brain surgeon© 

Do you ever watch the real-time futures charts on a major economic release day?  It is always, uh, entertaining.  This morning is no exception.  There is usually a wild knee-jerk reaction as soon as the data are released and it often whipsaws as no one can figure out from the headline if they are happy or sad.  Over the next hour the graph will reflect the reading of the detail, and by lunch either a trend for the day is established or thwarted by other news or, sometimes it seems, a short attention span!

We have not yet read any other analysis, but we can predict the tone.  The overall rate has fallen (unconvincingly) as fewer are reported unemployed against a slightly smaller labor force.  Once in the detail, however, we see an employment picture that has, very predictably, remained essentially unchanged.  And why wouldn’t it?  Anemic demand and uncertainty still dominate a private sector under the supervision of a business unfriendly, regulation-happy administration.

Those with a Bachelor’s degree, or higher, find themselves unemployed at 4.4%.  That, as our readers know, is a historic high and actually got a bit worse in October.  Table 15, U-5 shows no change in the discouraged and marginally attached crowd.  It will, undoubtedly, be trumpeted that those unemployed less than 5 weeks and over 27 weeks has declined.  I suspect we’ll hear little about the jump in those unemployed 5-14 weeks as that hump moves across the calendar.  The decrease in 27+ may well coincide with those truly unemployed who aren’t counted as such because they have not looked for work in the past 4 weeks although they remain available and willing.

Unfortunate or fortunate there should be no real surprises this month.  We’ll just have to keep relying on those futures charts for excitement.  Ahh, 46 minutes post release the trend is decidedly down.  Let’s see if lunch is enough to forget the details.

Thanks for reading and, please, stay tuned…

Release Site: www.bls.gov

Every effort is made to ensure accuracy of data transcription but accuracy cannot be guaranteed.  The official release site should be cross referenced.  The analysis represents the opinion of Blue World Asset Managers, Ltd. who does not warrant or guarantee predictions based on its analysis.

©Blue World Asset Managers, LTD Friday, November 04, 2011