Jobs Data is Out

Oxford, MS 9/2/2011 (PennyPayDay) – The August reading of non-farm payrolls was well below the estimates, 0k for the total number and +17k for the private sector. The Government sector was only down 17k on the month, this after falling by an average of 57k in the previous three months.

Goods Producing jobs were down 3k on the month, while the Service sector rose 20k. The best sector was Education/Health +34k and Business Services +28k. The weakest sector aside from Government was Information jobs at -48k; Retail Trade and Trade/Transport were both down 8k. The previous two months were revised down 58k, meaning that the three month average for total payrolls is now just +35k.

The Unemployment Rate was steady at 9.1%, says the Household Survey, which tells a better story that does the Establishment Survey. The number of Employed rose 331k in August, while the number of Unemployed was up only 36.. The Civilian Labor Force rose 366k, the first gain in three months and the Not in Labor Force category was down 165k, the first decline in three months.

But the Average Duration of Unemployment fell only one tenth from the record high set in July to 40.3 weeks. Also bad news was the one tenth rise in the U6 Unemployment Rate to 16.2%. On the other hand the gain in Employed pushed the Employed to Population Ration up one tenth off the new cycle low set in July to 58.2.

The Average Hourly Earnings fell 0.1% in August on a monthly basis, while the annualized rate for earnings was +1.9%, down four tenths from the month before. Because the weekly hours were down the Weekly earnings were off by 0.4% on the month, the second drop in the last three months.

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