For those of you who are economic geeks, some interesting analysis on todays bizarrely high jobs print..
Something Snaps In The Job Market: Multiple Jobholders Hit All Time High As Unexplained 1.8 Million Jobs Gap Emerges | ZeroHedge
.....And even more remarkable:
the number of multiple jobholders whose primary and secondary jobs are both full-time just hit a record high! Hardly the sign of a strong job market, one where people can afford to quit jobs at will.
So what's going on here? The simple answer: Fewer people working, but more people working more than one job, a rotation which picked up in earnest some time in March and which has only been captured by the Household survey.
And since the Establishment survey is far slower to pick up on the nuances in employment composition,
while the Household Survey has gone nowhere since March, the BLS data engineers have been busy goalseeking the Establishment Survey (perhaps with the occasional nudge from the White House especially now that the economy is in a technical recession) to make it appear as if the economy is growing strongly, when in reality all they are doing is applying the same erroneous seasonal adjustment factor that gave such a wrong perspective of the labor market in the aftermath of the covid pandemic (until it was all adjusted away a year ago). In other words,
while the labor market is already cracking, it will take the BLS several months of veering away from reality before the government bureaucrats accept and admit what is truly taking place.
We expect that "realization" to take place just after the midterms, because the last thing the Biden administration can afford is admit the labor market is crashing in addition to the continued surge in inflation.
From another similar report
Wall Street Reacts To Today's "Phenomenally Strong" Jobs Report | ZeroHedge
The divergence continues to grow between the Establishment and the Household (as well as JOLTs data and Unemployment Insurance Claims).
Unemployment rate ticked lower, to 3.5%, though that was more driven by labor force participation dropping to 62.1% than the jobs created in the Household Survey.
I’m sure somewhere in the details, there might be some things to nitpick, but the report, especially the Establishment report puts the Fed firmly back in the hawkish camp.
Why the report is so much better than any estimate and seems inconsistent, to some degree with other jobs data, is a question to be asked.