Job Watch -- Job Growth Has Slowed

I haven't read the story, just the headline. The private sector added 135,000 jobs in May.

As you know, I am never impressed with the jobs report. Two comments:

First: with regard to the "added" jobs: before the recession recovery never took hold, the "magic number" for "new jobs added" was 200,000. Then it was lowered to 125,000.

Second comment: yesterday on CNBC the talking heads were pretty much in agreement that anything less than 150,000 would be a "bad number."

So, regardless how Reuters spins this story, a number of 135,000 is a "bad" number.

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Okay, now, I've read the story. I was correct: the analysts had forecast 165,000. 

135,000 is a bad number.  But not a horrendous number.

The 88,000 jobs added in March was a horrendous number. And in April, not a whole lot better: 113,000 (and that was revised downward from the previously reported 119,000).

It goes without saying that the original figures for both "new jobs" and "news jobless claims" are always better than the revised numbers. The administration has learned that folks never pay attention to "revised" figures; people don't pay attention to "corrections" it the newspaper either. It's human nature. We are always moving on. Week-old data is just that: a week-old. And everyone knew the number would be revised anyway. James Gleick's book The Information provides background to this phenomenon: predictable/predicted data is not information.

We will close with this boiler-plate quote: "We continue to see expansion of the workforce ... but growth has slowed since the beginning of the year."