"It is the kind of picture that amounts to a Rorschach test for Federal Reserve officials - offering ammunition to those who think the labor market demands immediate rate cuts and to those who think things are basically holding up, and that inflation should be the first-order concern. By the numbers: ADP, the payroll processor, reported that private-sector employment fell by 32,000 jobs in November, fueled by losses at the smallest companies."
"Zoom in: The single least alarming real-time job market indicator is the weekly release of unemployment insurance claims data. Despite many large companies announcing layoffs, that has not so far translated into more people showing up at their local unemployment office for benefits. The moving average of those claims has been 215,000 over the last four weeks, which is actually lower than it was in the spring and summer."
"Of note: The Bank of America Institute crunches customer data for an alternate measure of employment trends, and its November data, out Friday morning, tells the same story. Growth in payrolls slowed, now up only 0.2% year over year, from 0.5% the previous two months. But the rise in people receiving unemployment benefits was steady through the fall."
Private-sector employment declined by 32,000 jobs in November, driven by losses at the smallest companies. The ADP three-month average is -4,700 jobs, effectively flat in a 160 million-job economy. The Chicago Fed's real-time unemployment estimate was essentially flat at 4.44%, down from 4.46% in October and matching the most recent official September reading. Weekly unemployment insurance claims averaged 215,000 over four weeks, below spring and summer levels. Bank of America customer-data measures show similar trends. Payroll growth slowed to 0.2% year-over-year, down from 0.5% in prior months.
Read at Axios
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