Friday’s non-farm payrolls report overshadowed some relatively good news in other key metrics. As Goldman Sachs noted last week, many indicators have been pointing to stronger labor markets than the big NFP figure highlighted in the Friday data. And a few new data points from Friday confirm this thinking.
The first is the Monster Employment Index which ” is a broad and comprehensive monthly analysis of U.S. online job demand conducted by Monster Worldwide, Inc.” The index jumped 5% on a year over year basis and 4% on a month over month basis (via Monster):
The other bit of good news was temp help. Temporary help has been a superb leading indicator of employment over the last few decades. Despite weak employment data the last 5 months continue to show a positive trend:
2012-06: 2,533.6
2012-05: 2,508.4
2012-04: 2,489.8
2012-03: 2,469.1
2012-02: 2,482.3
Mr. Roche is the Founder and Chief Investment Officer of Discipline Funds.Discipline Funds is a low fee financial advisory firm with a focus on helping people be more disciplined with their finances.
He is also the author of Pragmatic Capitalism: What Every Investor Needs to Understand About Money and Finance, Understanding the Modern Monetary System and Understanding Modern Portfolio Construction.
Comments are closed.