The Aftermath of Friday's BLS 'Findings'

In the aftermath of last week's decidedly weak unemployment report (pre-spun to appear strong while ignoring the major drop in average weekly hours worked, which would have resulted in a massive drop in payrolls had total demand for labor stayed constant from March), many were looking for some confirmation, or denial, from today's Job Openings and Labor Turnover (JOLTS) survey which provides the labor breakdown by new job openings, hires, separations, quits and layo

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By Hugh, who is a long-time commenter at Naked Capitalism. Originally published at Corrente. A complete archive of Hugh’s reports can be found here.

By Trim Tabs:The BLS August jobs numbers are in and they reported the U.S. economy added a positively dismal 96,000 jobs. Meanwhile, we reported August job growth was 185,000, nearly twice what the BLS reported.I answered a zillion calls in the past couple of days inquiring about our employment number, then another zillion calls Saturday morning asking why our numbers were WRONG. I don't mean to be miss snub-nosed contrary here, but I am frustrated by the lack of understanding of what we are reporting.

On Monday, my "question of the day" was What will the unemployment rate look like for the rest of the decade? Click on the above link to see an interactive map that lets you select the rate of job growth up to January of 2020.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy expanded at a sluggish pace in the fourth quarter although a big gain in business investment and higher exports of services led the government to push up its previous estimate for growth. Gross domestic product expanded at a 0.4% annual rate, the Commerce Department said on Thursday, just below the 0.5% gain forecast by analysts in a Reuters poll.

The euro-area economy will shrink in back-to-back years for the first time, driving unemployment higher as governments, consumers and companies curb spending, the European Commission said. Gross domestic product in the 17-nation region will fall 0.3% this year, compared with a November prediction of 0.1% growth, the Brussels-based commission forecast Friday. Unemployment will climb to 12.2%, up from the previous estimate of 11.8% and 11.4% last year.