Posted on 01/04/2019 6:03:16 AM PST by ScottinVA
Job creation ended 2018 on a powerful note, with nonfarm payrolls surging by 312,000 in December though the unemployment rate rose to 3.9 percent.
The jobless rate, which was last higher in June, rose for the right reason as 419,000 new workers entered the workforce and the labor force participation rate increased to 63.1 percent. The participation level was up 0.2 percentage points from November and 0.4 percentage points compared with a year earlier.
A broader measure of unemployment that includes discouraged workers and those holding part-time jobs for economic reasons held steady at 7.6 percent.
In addition to the big job gains, wages jumped 3.2 percent from a year ago and 0.4 percent over the previous month. The year-over-year increase is tied with October for the best since April 2009. The average work week rose 0.1 hour to 34.5 hours.
Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting job growth of just 176,000, though they projected the unemployment rate to fall to 3.6 percent. The wage number also was well above expectations of 3 percent on the year and 0.3 percent from November.
The report, released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, comes amid concern over whether the U.S. economy is part of a global deceleration, despite turning in its best year since the Great Recession.
Data released this week showed a key manufacturing mark hitting a two-year low and mortgage volume at its lowest in 18 years.
The jobs market, however, remains hot.
Payrolls growth totaled 2.6 million in 2018, the highest since 2015 and well above the 2.2 million in 2017.
Health care led the way in new jobs, adding 50,000 for the month thanks to 38,000 new positions in ambulatory services and 7,000 more in hospitals. The industry saw a boom of 346,000 for the year, compared with a 284,000 gain the year before.
Restaurants and bars added 41,000 to the close the year with a 235,000 gain, down from 261,000 in 2017.
Construction also was one of the big gainers despite a slumping housing market. The industry added 38,000 jobs in December, bringing the annual total to 280,000, a 12 percent gain from 2017's 250,000.
Manufacturing also tuned in a solid 32,000 gain for the month, with the bulk of the growth coming from the 19,000 positions added in the key durable goods sector. The sector also saw a surge in 2018, with the 284,000 new positions representing a 37 percent rise from the previous year.
Another closely watched sector, retail, posted growth of 24,000 thanks to a holiday season boost. For the year, retail added 92,000, reversing the loss of 29,000 in 2017.
Government jobs saw a gain of 11,000.
Previous months also saw positive revisions, adding to the upbeat tone for the year. November saw its disappointing 155,000 original report revised up to 176,000, while October's count went from 274,000 to 237,000, for a net gain of 58,000 from the previous tallies.
Those revisions brought the three-month average up to a strong 254,000.
The report comes at a time of heightened market concerns over the Federal Reserve's future path. The U.S. central bank raised interest rates four times in 2018 in an effort to prevent the economy from overheating, but President Donald Trump has criticized the Fed for endangering the economic recovery.
Futures traders expect the Fed to hold steady through the year, and in fact are pricing in a 45 percent of a rate cut by the end of 2019.
Pelosi will still have something to say about people needing good jobs.... etc.
Yep... she'll yammer on about the need for a government jobs-guarantee program to "jump-start the economy."
"Obama only wishes it would have "risen" to 3.9% on his watch."
"This simply shows the enthusiasm of those returning to the workforce in this great economy!"
Data released this week showed a key manufacturing mark hitting a two-year low and mortgage volume at its lowest in 18 years.
...
Don’t get too excited. It takes some time for the Federal Reserve to put the economy in recession.
Looks like a lot of those poor government parasites will be able to find a new job.
Don’t worry, the Fed will raise rates soon and take care of that notion.
“we plan on only 2 increases in 2019.”
Interpretation: The first raise will be 0.25% in April to destabilize the market. The second will be around October and will be as much as 0.75%. Trump won’t be able to recover going into campaign season.
the cnn anchor just called the jobs report, “in a word, flat”. then he kicked it to the subject matter expert for details, who corrected him — it was “fantastic”.
the exchange was, in three words, “awkward as $%ck”.
What about all those people who went on Social Security “disability” after their unemployment checks ran out? Are these losers still stealing my retirement money, or have they gotten off their butts and gone back to work?
Waiting for ‘the weather was good’ narrative.
Interesting comment. I thought the Fed was looking at several rate increases during 2019. I would think the market would have factored in interest rate increases and not decreases.
I think in our sense of depression and recession...related to past experiences...I would question the definitions of the two in present-day society. There are people today, who haven’t worked for over a dozen years and live out of dad’s garage, with him giving them $300 a month for pizza and beer. There are people who make a combined income of $250,000 a year....yet because of car loans, college loans, house debt, and credit card loans...they have barely $300 a month to use for non-essentials. There are guys churning out $3,000 a week in illegal and illicit drug sale profits...yet they can’t really report it and they have to pay for everything with cash.
Even with the 2008 drop, which really were about constructed loan packages, which no one in the banking industry could really explain on profitability or risk...we are in a new era where old definitions no longer fit.
This producer working person is getting back into the application game.
I sent my CV to a few just to see what comes back.
This FED is the best I have seen since Volcker was the chair.
Dingbat is doing everything she can to turn this economy around so the slaves will need her Marxist solutions.
Not several, only 2 measly 1/4 point raises in 2019! This is the most transparent FED in my 56 years in the stock market.
I am NOT a stock market expert, but it seems (as Tim Anderson on Twitter argues) there is a major disconnect between the “economy” and the stock market. As best I can tell, this is centered on the tech sector.
There are several issues with tech that I think any sensible investor can see.
1) As some have pointed out quite well here on FR, where Steve Jobs over his career presided over FOUR major innovations (PC, cell phone, iPad, iPod), since he has died, Apple has basically reshuffled the phone deck again and again. The iWatch? Really? Ok, give them “one.”
We see this throughout tech right now. They have entered that period of growth where they are managing existing products. It happens in every industry. True innovation and radical change disappears. (See: GM and Ford in the 1960s).
2) The pending threat of regulation. I believe Trump can run on trust-busting in 2020 in Big Tech and Big Pharma. The rule of thumb in the US economy is that sooner or later companies stop regulating themselves and the government steps in. I wish it were not so, but you’d be hard pressed to give me examples of an industry whose self policing worked (maybe movies and the comic book industry). Drug prices are beyond ridiculous, for a number of reasons you all know-—regular old greed, having to subsidize Europe with our prices, the obsession with researching “new” drugs when no one can afford the old. It’s like Ferrari in a downtrodden country continually researching more expensive cars. So far, Trump has only made a few comments about this, but I could see him pivoting to trust busting in 2020.
3) The Chinese monster. As you all know, when you get in bed with commies, they call the tune. The Chicoms lured in American tech with the prospect of slave wages and a giant market-—and now they are stuck with a communist tyrannical ally. Just because China is a “softer” communism doesn’t make it any better. Sooner or later, the globalist tech companies will have to pick a country.
4) Public backlash: I think there is a genuine and deserved distrust of tech-—it’s not Ludditeism-—both from a security standpoint and from a political censorship standpoint.
I’m sure some of you better versed in the market than I am can point to problems with stocks in other sectors, but this, at least, seems an obvious starting point.
O’Idiot had no Fed Interest Raise.
Yeah, that comment sounds pretty far fetched.
That’s the biggie—the workforce participation rate, because as Trump well pointed out during his campaign, the current methods of tracking unemployment come up with artificially low numbers.
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