Blue World Employment Situation Report Analysis 04-07-2017

Blue World Employment Situation Report Analysis

Release Date: Usually on the first Friday of the month

Release Site: www.bls.gov

Market Impact: Usually Very High

Management Value: Critical

Friday, April 07, 2017

Brain Surgery is not Rocket Science to a Brain Surgeon©

BLS

Bad at the headline and worse for the Private Sector, but usually when this happens we talk about the really bad stuff hiding deep in the weeds. For as much as we say the devil is in the details, sometimes we find an angel or two. That’s the case today and a very welcome surprise considering the train wreck of a headline we woke up to.

The published number is 98k, and that’s bad enough, but the private sector came in 9k below that at just 89k. One of the most striking things about that number is how far it deviates from the ADP report from Wednesday. We never consider ADP to be a good predictor, but it is rarely that far afield, and the Participation Rate is still at only 63%.

After that the skies start to brighten slightly. The Civilian Labor Force grew by 145k, and the Not in Labor Force number remained essentially flat. Construction and Manufacturing, while off their torrid paces of the last couple of months, remained comfortably in the plus column, and the Diffusion Indexes for total private industry and manufacturing remained above 50, indicating growth.

The real eye-popping stats, however, were the Total Employed and Total Unemployed entries, with the former checking in at +472k, and the latter falling by 326k. Those are some very pretty stats and all the more surprising and welcome in the face of the net new hire numbers. We don’t need to talk about the uselessness of the Unemployment Rate, right?

What does it all mean? Good question. Based on what we see in the deep end of the data pool, we will be curious about a revision next month, because some of these numbers just don’t line up. We also think that the Labor Market Conditions Index will show some strength on Monday. The earliest data post healthcare fail shows the consumer continues undaunted, but translation to hard spending data has not materialized yet. You can see more about that in the Blue World Economic Index® report published last week.

This will be an interesting month. Trucks are running people over everywhere, Syria is gassing its people, we gave Assad a missile shower, and a Russian war ship has set course to intercept the U.S. destroyers that provided the spray! The Senate was forced into the nuclear option, healthcare reform failed, tax reform is in question, and we effectively have three parties occupying the Congress. Of course there’s more, but that’s enough to get us started!

See you at the back end of April for the next Blue World Economic Index® report. In the meantime, may you manage your business well!!

 

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, April 07, 2017