November 7, 2003
BUSHONOMICS III:
U.S. jobs machine kicks into gear (TERRY WEBER, Nov. 7, 2003, Globe and Mail)
The U.S. economy created 126,000 jobs in October, making good on economists' hopes that the nation's struggling labour market had finally turned a corner.Equally encouraging in Friday's U.S. Department of Labour report was the fact that September's non-farm payroll gain was revised upward to 125,000 from the original 57,000.
October's unemployment rate fell to 6 per cent from 6.1 per cent the month before. [...]
Economists polled by Briefing.com were looking for a gain of about 65,000 jobs in October, although some had hoped for a better number after encouraging reports out of the manufacturing sector in recent weeks.
First the GDP growth number, then productivity, now jobs--it's damned annoying the way every one of these reports is lying but all are consistent with each other. There should be an investigation. Posted by Orrin Judd at November 7, 2003 10:57 AM
The jobs number is not inherently improbable like the other two were.
Experience has shown much bigger swings in the past.
And the jobs figure is much, much smaller a swing than the other two.
But as I've warned before, the preliminary figures are always wrong.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at November 7, 2003 11:28 PM