U.S. payrolls fell by 247,000 in July versus a 443,000 loss in June, and the jobless rate dropped from 9.5% to 9.4% as the labor force contracted. July labor force counts for San Francisco will be out in a week with June at 9.8% unemployed.
San Francisco County Unemployment Jumps To 9.8 Percent In June [SocketSite]

15 thoughts on “It’s Not Often A 9.4 Percent Jobless Rate In The U.S. Is Bullish News”
  1. That’s impossible, I had it on good authority (one of the posters here) that we were still losing a million jobs every two months. Clearly this report is wrong.

  2. anon wrote:
    > Three categories of job gains:
    > health & education
    I don’t know much about health, but almost every part of education is having cutbacks (take a look at any county education budget or the CSU and UC budgets that have been hammered.
    > government
    Except some parts of DC, almost every government in the nation is having cutbacks (I have two tenants in Sacramento who are now home three Fridays a month).
    > leisure & hospitality.
    Can anyone name a leisure & hospitality firm with a bigger payroll than a year ago? Hotel occupancy and ADRs are down in almost every market and there is way less “leisure” activity going on (last weekend some friends were with us in Tahoe and just walked up to rent a ski boat on a Saturday. The girl at the counter said it has been a very slow summer)…

  3. BTW, the number of long-term unemployed increased by a half million, and the slowing of automobile and manufacturing unemployment can be partially attributed to massive governmental intervention.
    To be accurate, every GM employee should now be treated as being on the govt’s payroll.

  4. Former Apt, at a guess you are confusing MOM gains with YOY figures.
    Presumably the job gains anon mentioned were MOM – you are talking about comparing to a year ago.

  5. This will definitely be seen as good news by the stock market since analysts were thinking there’d be about $250k to $400k job losses. This report is at the better end of estimates.
    it’s a bad jobs report, BUT it is far better than some of the previous horrific reports, so you’ll get a lot of people happy that we have slowing of the second derivative which is a good thing (but not likely as good as people make it out to be).
    Although there are some things that have me very worried (such as the persistent elevation in the number of “involuntarily part time” employees as well as the number of people who no longer are counted as unemployed because they’ve been unemployed for so long), overall the report certainly came out a little better than I thought it would, especially the fact that average hourly employment is up.
    Overall, we faced the edge of the precipice and lived to tell the tale. now we seem to be improving (or getting worse more slowly anyway), and that can be seen as a good thing. what is still most concerning is how weak this data is in the face of all this Federal stimulus. what happens when that goes away?
    Looking more and more like a W shaped recovery every day.

  6. “so you’ll get a lot of people happy that we have slowing of the second derivative which is a good thing . . .”
    Doesn’t “slowing” of the second derivative somehow implicate the third derivative? I think what you mean to say is the second derivative is no longer negative.

  7. other bullish indicators in the report, May and July’s numbers were revised downward, avg hourly wages rose (which typically signals workers making over time pay which is a leading indicator to more hiring), and avg hourly work week also rose (albeit from 33 hrs to 33.1).
    Over all a very good report easily beating expectations and a strong sign that we have turned a major corner, of course the big question now is how strong any recovery will be.

  8. irrational exuberance. as stated by Alan Greenspan on Dec 5, 1996.
    The stock market took its sharpest plunge in five months this morning after Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan criticized “irrational exuberance” on Wall Street, but by day’s end, stocks had recovered most of their losses.
    Why do we have such a short memory ? We are reliving the previous recessions all over again !

  9. oh, and in case you were wondering, here is the fall out of that statement, in the Miami Herald in Jan 1997.
    This is how we reward the thinkers of our times ? Because we don’t “like” what they say, even if it is true ??

  10. Interpreting The BLSs report as “good news” together with past month’s DJIA performance are positive indicators that the American public has the collective attention span of a gnat.

  11. Doesn’t “slowing” of the second derivative somehow implicate the third derivative? I think what you mean to say is the second derivative is no longer negative.
    ROFL.
    touche.
    hard sometimes to discuss the second derivative in plain English. I failed miserably.

  12. This is a sticky dilemma. Mortgage interest rates took a leap on the jobs news and the hint of a recovering economy, which will put a bit of a damper on home sales and other investments, which will delay any economic recovery . . .
    Any way out of this cycle? I suppose the powers-that-be could let things all go to hell more quickly so that a real, sustainable recovery can begin (albeit from a low point), but that won’t happen.

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