Thursday, February 02, 2006

Just remember...

...when tomorrow's jobs report comes out: jobs growth numbers trump unemployment figures.

Analysts expect 248,000 new jobs. I'll take the over.

4 comments:

Rick Ballard said...

We need a headline contest.

I'll take "Job Numbers Raise Inflation Worries"

Morgan said...

"Stocks fall on jobs report, interest rate jitters"

ex-democrat said...

"Thanks To GW, I May Be Able To Get Another Job When The MSM Finally Tanks."

Morgan said...

193,000 new jobs. Upward revisions of 49,000 and 32,000 to November and December numbers, respectively.

Unemployment dropped sharply from 4.9 to 4.7 percent.

Wages were up 0.4% (expectations were for a 0.3% rise).

That's a very good jobs report; payroll nembers were not as spectacular as I expected, but they were solid, and I didn't anticipate that unemployment would drop at all.

Still, I lose my bet. I was anticipating a monster number in the 300,000 range, with no change in unemployment.

On the other hand, we all win the headline contest thanks to NPR. Paraphrasing:

"Unemployment dropped to 4.7%, but payrolls rose by only 193,000, less than expected, and the employment report raised fears of inflation. Analyst X says that the tightening labor market may cause interest rates to rise, which means trouble for Wall Street..."