January Payrolls Miss Big, Adding Only 151,000 Jobs, But Hourly Wages Jump And Unemployment Slides To 4.9%

Tyler Durden's picture

A quick glimpse at the big miss in the January payrolls report, which just reported only 151,000 jobs gains well below the 190,000 expected and below most big banks’ expectations, if precisely on top of the whisper number, would have been sufficient to send futures soaring in the pre market: after all it would mean the economy has topped out and no more hikes are necessary.

Additionally, prior months were also revised sharply lower, with the November and October prints of 292K and 252K revised to 262K and 177K, a net loss of 105K jobs in the prior two months.

 

However, one glance below the headline and things get troubling because if indeed the Fed is most focused on the growth in hourly wages then we may have a problem: average hourly wages jumped by 0.5% – and 2.5% from a year ago – far above last month’s unchanged print, and quite a bounce to the expected 0.2%, suggesting wage inflation is indeed starting to heat up and putting the Fed in a very uncomfortable place.


 

Then there was the household survey which allegedly added 615,000 jobs, even if the pace of annual increase remains below the benchmark, at just 1.6% Y/Y.

 

Finally, the unemployment rate dropping to a cycle low of 4.9% is surely not going to help the “there is slack in the work force” argument.

From the report:

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 151,000 in January. Employment rose  in several industries, led by retail trade, food services and drinking places,  health care, and manufacturing. Private educational services and transportation  and warehousing lost jobs. Mining employment continued to decline. (See table B-1  and summary table B. See the note at the end of this news release and table A for information about the annual benchmark process.)

Retail trade added 58,000 jobs in January, following essentially no change in December. Employment rose in general merchandise stores (+15,000), electronics and appliance stores (+9,000), motor vehicle and parts dealers (+8,000), and furniture and home furnishing stores (+7,000). Employment in retail trade has increased by 301,000 over the past 12 months, with motor vehicle and parts dealers and general merchandise stores accounting for nearly half of the gain.

Employment in food services and drinking places rose in January (+47,000). Over the year, the industry has added 384,000 jobs.

Health care continued to add jobs in January (+37,000), with most of the increase occurring in hospitals (+24,000). Health care has added 470,000 jobs over the past 12 months, with about two-fifths of the growth occurring in hospitals.

Manufacturing added 29,000 jobs in January, following little employment change in 2015. Over the month, job gains occurred in food manufacturing (+11,000), fabricated metal products (+7,000), and furniture and related products (+3,000).

Employment in financial activities rose in January (+18,000). Job gains occurred in credit intermediation and related activities (+7,000).

Private educational services lost 39,000 jobs in January due to larger than normal seasonal layoffs.

Employment in transportation and warehousing decreased by 20,000 in January. Most of the loss occurred among couriers and messengers (-14,000), reflecting larger than usual layoffs following strong seasonal hiring in the prior 2 months.

Employment in mining continued to decline in January (-7,000). Since reaching a peak in September 2014, employment in the industry has fallen by 146,000, or 17 percent.

Employment in professional and business services changed little in January (+9,000), after increasing by 60,000 in December. Within the industry, professional and technical services added 25,000 jobs over the month, in line with average monthly gains over the prior 12 months. Employment in temporary help services edged down in January (-25,000), after edging up by the same amount in December.

Employment in other major industries, including construction, wholesale trade, and government, changed little over the month.

The average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 0.1 hour to 34.6 hours in January. The manufacturing workweek edged up by 0.1 hour to 40.7 hours, and factory overtime was unchanged at 3.3 hours. The average workweek for production and nonsupervisory employees on private nonfarm payrolls was unchanged at 33.8 hours. (See tables B-2 and B-7.)

In January, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls increased by 12 cents to $25.39. Over the year, average hourly earnings have risen by 2.5 percent. In January, average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees rose by 6 cents to $21.33. (See tables B-3 and B-8.)

The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for November was revised from +252,000 to +280,000, and the change for December was revised from +292,000 to +262,000. With these revisions, employment gains in November and December combined were 2,000 lower than previously reported. Over the past 3 months, job gains have averaged 231,000 per month. Monthly revisions result from additional reports received from businesses since the last published estimates and the recalculation of seasonal factors. The annual benchmark process also contributed to these revisions.

 

17
Leave a Reply

avatar
  Subscribe  
Notify of
Anonymous
Anonymous

Workforce participation is the only real number to pay attention to, all the others are just subcategories of it.

But it is never the number we are presented with up front by the MSM, you usually have to look for it to find it.

TPC
TPC

@Anon – I also like Median household income.

Workforce participation tells me the true unemployment.

Median household income tells me how screwed the few working are.

PS: I’d like to volunteer myself for wage inflation. I’ll take that hit guys.

TPC
TPC

Oh man, the articles rolling around are hilarious:

“Chicken-little investors, please read the jobs report”

Opinion: What recession? Manufacturing jobs hit 7-year high

There are many more examples floating around. The truth is that the chickens are coming home to roost, the made up numbers, the lack of consumer spending/confidence, the bloated credit….its hitting.

The stock market will continue to waffle up and down on its inexorable downward trend and eventually the pundits will be forced to admit that the market peaked in the summer of 2015, with a bear market starting around August 2015.

Dutchman
Dutchman

With 94,000,000 working age people not in the work force – we are at 4.9% unemployment.

So once you reclassify someone as ‘not in the workforce’ they are no longer unemployed!

Once everyone is not in the workforce we will have 0% unemployment. At the same time we will have 0% employment!

Where are all these people? They are hidden – the HNIC has hid them in SNAP, section 8, free cell phone programs, medicaid, general assistance, SSDI, and a myriad of other alphabet soup programs. This is one reason our national debt grows over $1,000,000,000,000 a year.

SpecOpsAlpha
SpecOpsAlpha

Keep buying ammo; you can never have enough ammo.

If you ask yourself if you have enough, then the answer is ‘No.’

rhs jr
rhs jr

Something is rotten in Denmark. I don’t believe this month’s BLS Jobs & Wages Report any more than I believe Obama’s SOTU Address. Even if foreign dollars are flowing back to America to escape the Global Economic Crash and jacking our economy up, “Where’s the beef”? I’m going with my own lying eyes now because this Emperor and his government is a bunch of bald-ass self-serving lying NWO bastards.

card802
card802

Stores reported sales are way down, stores are closing, malls are empty…..so they hire 58,000 leading all industries?

These numbers really stink and I’m sure they will be revised at a later day. But that didn’t stop obama from hitting the boobtube to tell his minions how great he is.

He even tweeted he saved America and “We’ve recovered from the worst economic crisis since the 1930’s”

This always happens while one in seven are still on gov assistance, the fed is ready to go negative, the stock market is tanking and the world is on the verge of a global recession.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Specops,

From Waco to Randy Weaver to Oregon, I’ve seen no evidence more ammo would have meant anything at all in the outcome.

Better off having just a little that you can carry around with you in an emergency and knowing when, where and how to use it.

It’s like having dozens and dozens of guns, unless you are a firearms aficionado and collector why?

Westcoaster
Westcoaster

One other thing I’d like to point out; when a person works 2 or 3 of these shit jobs to make ends meet, the BS-BLS counts that one person 2 or 3 times. Their numbers are meaningless. I’d like to see what John Williams at Shadowstats has to say about this report.

yahsure
yahsure

I wonder how many people actually believe those numbers. Looks like bullshit to me. I thought Obama would hit 20 trillion in debt,But he isn’t going to make it.Maybe the next President can do it.

skinbag
skinbag

What a bunch of BULLSHIT ! Who the fuck writes this crap? The last bastion of decent wage jobs (oil and gas drilling industry) is in a fucking DEPRESSION – HELLL000OOOOOW ASS HOLES. The REPORTED unemployment numbers are low because MILLIONS have exhausted their unemployment benifits and are no longer counted as unemployed. Doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that one out. And all those tens of thousands going from 60K / 100K per year income to ZERO or a shit bag job at a DUNKIN DONUTS or unemployment money does NOTHING to help keep this consumerised shit show economy growing. WE HAVE ENTERED THE RACE TO THE BOTTOM ! (good luck to all)

I paid laborers 10 – 12 dollars per hour in the 1980’s. With this income they could afford nice cars / trucks, nice clothes and a nice apartment or house to rent. Many jobs today don’t pay any where near this amount. To have today the same buying power as my laborers did a person would need around 28 dollars per hour. Who the fuck pays that kind of money today ?

Stucky

GREAT NEWS!! I’m down to my high-school weight of 195 pounds ….. if you don’t count my moobs, gut, fat ass, and python.

Yeah. It just like that.

Bea Lever
Bea Lever

Stucky- Most excellent !! What is your secret?

Bea Lever
Bea Lever

Never mind ……I read it again, thought you were serious.

underfire
underfire

Bea Lever says:

Stucky- Most excellent !! What is your secret?” Accounting, from the School of Government Figuring.

Discover more from The Burning Platform

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading