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Parker Ross

@Econ_Parker

Sep 11

Well, well, well...

After sitting on the backburner for some time, jobless claims are back in the headlines with the highest weekly print since the pandemic.

Initial jobless claims jumped by 32k to 263k during the week ending Sept 6.

Let's see what's going on in the 🧵

Let's start with how big of a weekly increase this was.

We've only seen a handful of jumps in the 30k range post-pandemic.

Let's next recall that we just had a holiday, Labor Day.

There is generally a lot of volatility in hiring & firing around holidays and the timing of exactly which week the holiday falls in any given year can shift (see below).

Read 10 tweets

Parker Ross

@Econ_Parker

Sep 10

The Aug PPI declined -0.1%, softer than expected (0.3%) although PPI excluding food, energy & trade was in-line with expectations at 0.3%.

What does this mean?

Core goods prices are still rising at an above trend pace, while broader price pressures eased.

Details in the 🧵

Let's look at Goods Less Food And Energy, what I was referring to as "Core Goods."

Prices for core goods were up 0.32% in Aug, which is well above trend despite stepping down slightly from July.

Looking specifically at Finished Core Consumer Goods and Private Capital Equipment, it's clearer that there is still upward pressure on goods inflation.

Read 10 tweets

Parker Ross

@Econ_Parker

Sep 9

How will recent job growth look after today's Current Employment Statistics (CES) preliminary benchmark revisions?

Glad you asked.

Here's a look at monthly job growth if we include the revised data and carry forward that monthly pace of negative revisions through August.

Sector-level details in the 🧵

Here's a look at job growth over the prior 4 months, with sector-level revisions incorporated.

Here's just August before and after the implied revisions

Again, the revisions only go through March '25.

So, these figures are simply extrapolating forward the negative revisions, which may not be far from plausible given the magnitude of the 2025 revisions were in-line / slightly more severe than the preliminary 2024 revisions.

Read 11 tweets

Parker Ross

@Econ_Parker

Sep 5

Bigly disappointing jobs report this morning...

Where to begin?

How about the fact that the economy outside of health care has been a drag on growth over the past 3 months.

Many more interesting takeaways in the 🧵

Here's the same data, but with the breakdown of health care jobs (grey) vs all other industries.

Shown another way, here's how much healthcare jobs are driving overall private sector service providing job growth...

It's averaged 125% over the past 3 months, meaning the remaining private sector industries are a net drag on growth.

Read 15 tweets

Parker Ross

@Econ_Parker

Sep 4

The July Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) reveals the details underlying the recent sharp deceleration in net hiring activity.

It's pretty straightforward: hiring has downshifted and separations have turned higher in recent months.

Clearly, if these recent trends were to continue, net job growth would turn negative in short order.

More details on the underlying trends in the🧵

Let's look under the hood at which regions are driving the recent downshift.

Since net hiring (total hires less separations) peaked in May at 259k on a 3m avg basis, job growth has slowed most in the Midwest (-93k), Northeast (-45k), and West (-40k) with a more modest slowdown in the South (-16k).

Zooming in a bit, we can see that the JOLTS-implied net job growth had turned negative in the Midwest (-21k) and West (-7k) in July, with the Northeast contributing only 11k to the recent 3m avg job growth and the South accounting for the remaining 82k jobs.

Read 11 tweets

Parker Ross

@Econ_Parker

Sep 4

Challenger released its August job cuts report this morning and it showed a 13% y/y increase in layoff announcements.

While I usually provide context to downplay headline figures, in this case it's the opposite...

Last Aug is a tough benchmark, when layoffs were already 81% above the pre-COVID norm, so the fact we're up 13% y/y from that elevated level means we're now 105% above the pre-COVID norm for Aug, up from 98% in July.

Details in the 🧵

On an absolute basis, announced job cuts were ~44k above normal for August, with most of the lift coming from the east (35.2k above normal), followed by the West (17.1k), with the South and Midwest both below their pre-COVID norm, -3.9k and -4.3k, respectively.

On a cumulative basis, announced layoffs have been now surpassed 1m more than the pre-COVID norm since they started surging back in Nov '22.

The West still accounts for the bulk of the excess layoffs (522k), but the East (468k) has nearly caught up due to the DOGE layoffs announced earlier this year.

Read 10 tweets

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