Thursday, January 5, 2012

Is this the Employment Figure We've Been Waiting For?

Is this finally an employment figure that shows we are out of the weeds? Not so fast per Peter Boockvar (via The Big Picture):

ADP said private sector job adds totaled 325k in Dec, a blowout compared to expectations of 178k and compares with 204k in Nov. Job gains were mostly led by small and medium sized businesses in the service providing sector but we also saw job gains of 52k in the goods producing area of which 22k were created in manufacturing and 26k in construction. Bottom line, it’s great news to see this level of job gains in the private sector but Macroeconomic Advisors, which compiles the data, did say December seasonals may have had ‘idiosyncratic’ influences of the report. Dec ’10 also saw a big jump from the prior few months only to fall back in the months after.

We'll see official employment figures tomorrow. Fingers crossed...

Update:

The FT outlines why this may be a seasonal event (even more at Calculated Risk)

Source: ADP

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