Last #jobsreport for 2022 out today shows in Dec:
*223,000 jobs added, down modestly from 256,000 in Nov
*Unemp down to 3.5% + LFP up 0.1pp
*Wage growth decelerates to 4.6%
Overall, a nice gift to end 2022 with measured slowing getting us closer to a soft landing.
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Payroll growth slowed to 223,000 in December 2022, roughly in line with expectations.
With the exception of July, jobs growth has been steadily and gradually declining through much of 2022.
We're still getting job gains in most major industries though health care & social assistance (+74,400) and leisure & hospitality (+67,000) continue to lead job gains, like much of 2022.
-Professional & business services was down due to temporary help services falling, potentially signaling early cost-cutting by employers
-Construction was surprisingly up 28,000 despite the slowdown in housing
-Transportation & warehousing back in the green after losses in Nov
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We did see Information lose 5,000 jobs in Dec, but notably, this is *still* not due to #tech layoffs. It was instead due to losses in motion picture & sound recording. Several of the tech subsectors continue adding jobs on net.
Average weekly hours also fell to 34.3 in December. This data is noisy but could suggest that employers are cutting back hours but holding onto workers in the face of economic headwinds.
The unemployment rate is back down to 3.5%. The unemployment rate has only been that low in the last year, at the end of the pre-pandemic expansion in 2019-2020, and then not since 1969.
And the unemployment rate decrease was married with a rise in labor force participation both overall and for prime-age workers (25-54) after a few months of trending downwards.
Labor force participation and unemployment by race/ethnicity can be volatile on a month-to-month basis, but they still appear to be trending in the right direction as the labor market remains healthy.
Overall, a nice report to end the year on: solid job gains, improvement in the household survey after a few months of divergence, and measured deceleration for inflation hawks.
Payroll employment grew by 263,000 in September, tying the slowest rate of growth since April 2021. However, that's still well above pre-pandemic levels when jobs growth was averaging <200,000/month.
Job gains were a little more mixed by industry this month. Service industries led job gains though some sectors saw job losses. Some notable smaller industries:
Physicians offices: +10.2k
Home health care: +10.6k
Hospitals: +27.5k
Wow, U.S. job openings dropped sharply to 10.1 million in Aug. That's a steep drop from 11.2 million in Jul and the largest one-month drop since the pandemic began.
While the level is still high, that's a more definitive sign of cooling in one of the Fed's watched metrics.
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The drop in job openings and jump in unemployment in Aug pushed the ratio of openings to unemployed workers to 1.67, down from 1.97 in Jul.
There are issues w/ this measure, but the Fed refers to it often, so the slowing here is notable.
The drop in job openings was across the board, hitting most industries.
Note: this table shows that most industries are still seeing higher openings than pre-pandemic, but again, points to the broader economic slowdown making employers reevaluate hiring plans.
The job market is falling back to trend:
Aug's #JobsReport shows 315,000 job gains, slower & more consistent w/ softer spring gains, moderating after Jul's blockbuster report
The unemployment rate rose to 3.7 percent, but on the back of strong labor force gains.
Job gains fell back to trend in August, w/ 315,000 jobs added, more in line with the slower job gains from the spring.
July's blockbuster job gains seem like a positive fluke, though they largely held up to revisions, revised down only 2,000.
Unfortunately, today's revisions pushed July's payroll employment below pre-pandemic levels, but no worries, instead we hit the milestone in August instead. As of August 2022, payroll employment is back to pre-pandemic levels.
June's #JobsReport shows the job market holding steady despite recession fears. Job gains slowed modestly to 372,000, beating expectations, and unemployment held flat at 3.6% for the 4th month in a row.
This is still a hot labor market even if the broader economy is cooling.
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Job gains cooled only modestly in June, beating expectations. Job gains overall seem to have shifted into a lower gear in the last few months, but recall that in 2019's hot job market, monthly job gains averaged 164k. This is still a healthy clip.
Most industries added jobs in June in broad-based gains across the board. A few industry stories: 1. Despite concerns about rotation from goods to services, job gains returned in #retail (+15.4k) and held strong in leisure & hospitality (+67k)
U.S. job openings dropped to 11.3 million in May, showing signs of cooling even though demand still remains well above pre-recession levels. Even if the job market is cooling from white hot to red hot, it's still hot.
The drop in job openings was primarily driven by professional & business services (-325,000) and #manufacturing (-208,000). Prof & biz services openings dropped 14% MoM as hiring freezes crimped demand & pushed it back to late-2021 levels.
Manufacturing job openings dropped by 208,000 or 20% MoM in May, though labor demand in manufacturing has been more volatile, so May is still roughly consistent with levels we've seen for much of 2021–2022.
Today's January #JobsReport is significantly stronger than expected. Job gains totaled 467,000 even as Omicron drove record high COVID cases. Unemployment ticked up to 4.0%
Huge payroll revisions too: Dec up to 510,000 from 199,000. Nov up to 647,000 from 249,000.
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Charts will be slow this morning, but 2 more things:
-Labor force participation ticks up to 62.2%
-Weekly hours were down 0.2 hrs, employee absence due to illness up to 3.6 million, a new record high; showing Omicron had impact even if it reverse slow jobs growth
Slipping in a few charts while I can: we added 467,000 jobs in January. In hindsight, the end of year slowdown no longer looks as dramatic. Despite Omicron now *and* Delta in the late fall, jobs growth stayed surprisingly strong.