A 'quadruple play' of potential worry in the July jobs reports
1. Headline number Unemployment Rate (U3) went up from 8.2 to 8.3% (due to rounding). This gives the appearance of treading water or slighting going backward to a casual reader/typical swing voter.
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2. The huge bulk of these created jobs are indeed 'created' via massive Seasonal and even more specious Birth/Death model adjustments, which do not (and also given their huge statistical errors for past Julys) oftentimes translate into real jobs for real voters, if even on a slight level, and especially in crucial areas of the swing states.
See http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014184289#post14 for a further fleshing out of these first two points.
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now for the 2 bigger ones, the last being potentially the biggest news:
3. Full-Time Jobs -197,000; Part-Time Jobs +31,000
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/full-time-jobs-197000-part-time-jobs-31000
We got the pre-spun job quantity data already, where we learned that nearly 3 times the headline print was due to seasonal and B/D adjustments and is thus nothing but noise. Now we get the quality. As can be seen below, courtesy of Table A9 from the Household Survey, in July the number of part-time jobs added was 31K, bringing the total to 27,925, just shy of the all time record of 28,038. Full time jobs? Down 228,000 to 114,345, lower than the February full-time jobs print of 114,408. Once again, more and more Americans are relinquishing any and all benefits associated with Full Time Jobs benefits, and instead are agreeing on a job. Any job. Even if it means working just 1 hour a week. For the BLS it doesn't matter - 1 hour of work a week still qualifies you as a Part-Time worker.
Full time and part-time jobs summary:
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4. The jobs number being tossed about (+163,000) is likely be 'good enough' to block any Fed Action by September in terms of QE3, which would (even though the boost would be artificial and short term) definitely help Obama in the November elections. And if no QE3 by September, there will be no QE until AFTER the election, as there is no way the Fed will do anything within 30 to 45 days of the US elections. The next 2 weeks will tell if the Fed is going to make a move. If you see the markets start to dip, this will mean that QE is probably NOT coming, or at least they are pricing this 'reality' in.
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IMHO, the WH better be privately turning up the heat to 'ass-roast' level on Helicopter Ben and his printing press.
