James Pethokoukis: “An Improving Job Market”

Hmm. I’m not sure about this statement.

Figure 1: Log nonfarm payroll employment, Dec 2008 (blue); Feb 2009 (red); Apr 2009 (green); May 2009 (black). NBER defined recessions shaded gray. Source: BLS via FREDII, NBER, and author’s calculations.

Figure 2: Log nonfarm payroll employment (blue); nonfarm payroll employment minus government employment (green); aggregate weekly hours index, total private industry (red), normalized to 0 at 2007M12. NBER defined recessions shaded gray. Source: BLS via FREDII, NBER, and author’s calculations.

On the other hand, I liked two of the caveats in his earlier post.

1) I am not sure if I am as quite as euphoric as my friend economist Robert Brusca — “Today we have not just ‘Green shoots’ but an authentic sighting of the Jolly Green Giant himself” — but the decline in payroll losses is very good news.

…

3) Those long-term unemployment numbers are bad news for foreclosure rates and credit card defaults.

James Pethokoukis: “An improving job market”

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