A Status Quo Jobs Report
By Matt McDonald, (202) 822-1205, mmcdonald@hamiltonps.com
Once again, today’s jobs report sent everyone looking for silver linings. There was good news to be found, but today’s report did little to change the economic outlook for better or worse. This was captured by the incremental change in the HPS jobs model: going into today, to get below 8 percent by Election Day, the economy needed 263,000 jobs per month (see the memo); after today, that number is 262,000 jobs per month.
The headline employer survey was an underwhelming 80,000 jobs, but there was some good news to be had in the household numbers, with 277,000 new jobs, and a decrease in those out of work for 27 weeks or more. The total number of unemployed decreased by a less impressive overall 95,000 people.
We will know that the job market is really gaining steam when we stop having to look for silver linings in jobs reports. This was not that report.
Matt McDonald is a partner at Hamilton Place Strategies and a veteran of …
One Year Left for Jobs to Show Up
By Matt McDonald, (202) 822-1205, mmcdonald@hamiltonps.com
There is one year left until Election Day 2012. On November 6, 2012 the American people will decide who will be president for the next four years. And on the Friday prior to that, November 2, 2012, they will hear the final verdict on job creation during President Obama’s four years in office.
We do not yet know what that jobs verdict will look like, but we can look at trends. In 2011 so far, the economy has created jobs at a rate of about 120,000 per month according to the BLS employer survey (the household survey indicates a more modest rate). If this trend were to continue through to Election Day, the unemployment rate would be 9.1 percent, exactly the rate that it stands at today, and in line with current estimates by both private and public sector economists.
The reason we would be making no progress on unemployment, despite new jobs each month, is because we would consistently be creating fewer jobs than we need just …