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ADP Employment Report

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The stock market has been up so far in September, a somewhat unusual event for the weakest month in stocks.  The optimism is propelled largely by decent news on jobs, with weekly initial unemployment claims dropping to their lowest level since 2008 at 323k.  But the big news was the ADP Employment Report, which came in at 176k jobs gained in August.  Investors are still watching for the official Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) report on Friday – but they don’t need to.

What is this ADP Employment Report, and what does it mean?  It’s actually the best barometer of where we are, if not the official one, and it comes with a lot of useful information that can’t be found anywhere else.  Since we’ve dissected the official BLS report it’s time to take a good look at the ADP numbers – and why they are in many ways much more interesting.

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Part Time Work

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Part-time work is a part of the economy.  A first job might be just a few hours after school, and parents often find themselves only able to work while the kids are in school.  Some people want only part-time work while they get their “real career” together, such as an artist who waits tables to pay the bills.  But in an economic downturn, people get stuck with fewer hours than they want and the ranks swell.

When we discussed the employment figures released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) here in Barataria, the “Part Time for Economic Reasons” really stuck in the craw of many readers, and for good reasons.  That number has to come down from 5.3% of all employed persons before we can be excited about the jobs reports.  The San Francisco Federal Reserve had the same feeling, and has released a new report with some fascinating details on part-time work in the US and what it is today.

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What is Employment?

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There’s been a lot of good economic news lately, the second year in a row that July uncharacteristically surged ahead.   The “ISM Index” poll of manufacturers looked more positive than it has since 2008, even with a strong US Dollar.  Initial claims for unemployment fell to 326k last week, another low since 2008.  US GDP grew at 1.7% in 2Q13, not exactly great news but far better than expected (and accompanied upward revisions to previous quarters).  The ADP employment report showed a net gain of 200k jobs, the rosiest figure of them all.  Only 82k of those came from small businesses, with large companies gaining a new high of 60k jobs added – meaning that for the first time since 2008 big companies are in a hiring mood.

By the time you read this, the official Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) employment report for July should have come out, and it should be roughly in line with the more smooth ADP figure.  Now that we are really turning a corner, as Barataria expected in 2013, it’s time to take an in-depth look at what “employment” means and why there’s still so very far to go.

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Summing it Up

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Much has been happening lately, but the news is hard to digest.  For now, I’d rather stay with the economic news and summarize what I think is going on.  This post is largely a repeat from last year, but it makes a jumping-off point.  I think that the context of the news is extremely important because without it all we have is a senseless jumble of events and not a coherent understanding.

If we can’t grab what is happening around us and make it our own, how can we call ourselves a free and democratic society?  Barataria does what it can to offer a different way of looking at what is happening and relate it in story form, free of unexplained jargon.  Hopefully, this will help to make a more real and useful politics.

After a few months of big events and heavy articles, it’s time to summarize the Baratarian view on the big economic picture in one polemic and invite your comments.

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The Livin’ is Queasy

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Your daddy’s rich / And your mamma’s good lookin’
So hush little baby / Don’t you cry
Summertime, from Porgy & Bess by George Gershwin

As the school year winds down, summer officially starts.  You wouldn’t know it in the upper Midwest, where a cold rain has drizzled down nearly every day for the last month.  Though a lot of crops didn’t make it into the field on time, it’s really summer.  The thermometer might not say it, but the economic reports do.

Every year at this time there is a small recession, a general slowdown.  It’s why so many financial advisers avoid stocks this time of the year.  But wasn’t this year supposed to be different?  It was.  But it isn’t.  And that has everyone scrambling to explain why things are looking a little bit blue.

They shouldn’t.  This is normal – or normal amplified a bit by general uneasiness for the long haul.

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