-->Hi,

von comstock.com ein Kommentar zum Arbeitsmarkt sowie ein interessanter Chart von Ned Davis zum jetztigen Arbeitsmarkt im Vergleich zum Durchschnitt des sich erholenden Arbeitsmarkt nach den letzten fünf Rezessionen nach WWII.

Employment--A Lagging Indicator?
Exposing the Myth

We have attempted to make the point in past comments (and even on the NBR interview recently posted on our home page) that the U.S. could not achieve a sustained recovery without corporate America investing in new plants and hiring new workers. The economic recovery could then evolve from workers spending their disposable income. Presently, the tepid economic growth we are achieving comes from consumers going into more debt or dipping into their declining net worth to purchase mostly homes and automobiles.

Last week the employment numbers were released and to almost everyone’s surprise we lost another 30,000 jobs in June and revised April and May estimates down by a total of 75,000 jobs. Not only was the employment report bad for the past month, but also the unemployment insurance claims were up 21,000 for the week to 430,000 and have been above 400,000 for the past 20 weeks. If you look at the 3-month average, the last 3 months were worse than the first 3 months of the year, while the war was going on. Combine these statistics with the unemployment rate rising to a 9 year high of 6.4% and you have a recipe for weaker growth--not stronger. The bulls attempt to point out that the unemployment rate increase was an aberration due to the 611,000 people who entered the labor force. They forget to point out how the unemployment rate was held down for the past few years due to workers leaving the work force.

Naturally the bullish crowd was able to put a positive spin on the numbers by crowing how employment is a lagging indicator and the rise in the stock market is forecasting a much stronger economy and earnings in the second half of this year. It is true that this market rally is a little stronger than the two rallies in 2001 and the 2 rallies in 2002. However, all you heard from the bullish crowd for the past 3 years is how these past market rallies were also forecasting a strong economic recovery, strong earnings and a roaring bull market.

We hope to dispel the myth that employment is a lagging indicator in this comment by first explaining the fact that the Conference Board uses employment as one of only four indicators that are coincident indicators. We then looked at the employment rate and compared it to economic results and it was clear it is coincidental with the economy. The best charts that we saw came from NDR research, which we attached at the bottom of this comment. You can see clearly the difference in employment growth between the so-called economic recovery we are in now and the recovery in 1991 (which was called a jobless recovery) and the typical recovery.

The ISM Index in the non-manufacturing industries (services) surged to 60.6 in June from 54.5 in May further encouraging the bulls. The numbers don’t gel with the fact that we are now not only losing jobs in manufacturing, but also that service jobs are exiting the U.S. Forrester Research predicts “3.3 million U.S. services jobs and $136 billion in annual wages will move offshore by 2015”. Another point on this matter-- maybe it is just us--but have any of our viewers ever heard of the ISM non-manufacturing indicator before a couple of months ago?

Again, we still feel strongly about the futility of monetary and fiscal policies stimulating a post bubble economy while the debasement of the U.S. dollar, in our opinion, will only spur competitive devaluations with our trading partners.

~ CLICK - pdf-Datei


Gruss
Cosa