DOW – 170 = 17,737
SPX – 17 = 2044
NAS – 32 = 4704
10 YR YLD – .05 = 1.97%
OIL – .54 = 48.25
GOLD + 14.50 = 1224.40
SILV + .14 = 16.62
Each month the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports on total non-farm payroll employment. The Jobs Report is usually released on the first Friday of each month. Last Friday was still considered part of the holidays, so we got the report this morning.
In December, the economy added 252,000 net new jobs and the unemployment rate dropped to 5.6% from 5.8%. Job gains from November and October were revised higher by 50,000 additional jobs. November now posted 353,000 jobs, and October revised up to 261,000. Job gains occurred in professional and business services, construction, food services and drinking places, health care, and manufacturing. The economy has now added 200,000 or more jobs each month for the past 11 consecutive months. 2014 was the best year for total employment since 1999, and the best year for private employment since 1997. And for the past 3 months we've average 289,000, which is about as good as I camployn recall. Private-sector ement, which in December clocked in at 118 million, has grown 10.4% from its 2009 low. The nation has gained back all the jobs it lost during the recession, and added some more.
The economy gained just over 2.95 million jobs in 2014, with 2.86 million of those coming from the private sector. After 5 years of public sector job losses, we finally saw 91,000 new government jobs last year; with about 12,000 new government jobs in December. We have now seen 51 consecutive months of job gains, which is a record, and it is a particularly impressive accomplishment considering that the government has cut about 611,000 jobs since 2009. The sluggishness of government jobs to recover is unprecedented.
The labor-force participation rate dropped 0.2 percentage points in December to 62.7%, matching a post-recession low and a level last seen in 1978. The participation rate looks at the percentage of the working age population actually in the labor pool. And this has been low for quite some time; the major reason is because the Baby Boomers are now heading into retirement, so it is a demographic shift. The share of men in their prime, working years who are not working has more than tripled since the 1960s. Also, the downturn left many workers discouraged at job prospects. If some of those discouraged workers start to look for jobs again, it is possible that we could see more job creation without pushing the unemployment rate lower. Instead, in December the size of the labor force actually fell, with 273,000 people no longer either holding a job or looking for one. So, one of the reasons the unemployment rate dropped from 5.8% to 5.6% is because the labor pool was smaller. That may be a statistical aberration, but even over a longer period of time the steep drop in the labor force since 2008 has not reversed itself.
