Today’s jobs report will be mildly disappointing for the Fed but not all that surprising. Policymakers were I believe expecting a negative number. The report is consistent with the idea that the labour market is turning – the three month moving average went down – but the improvement is sluggish and there may be several choppy months ahead.

It does however take some upside risk – of accelerating momentum leading to forecast upgrades – off the table. Read more

All important US nonfarms payrolls for December are out today. December employment fell by 85,000, against expectations of no jobs lost or gained, and the unemployment rate stayed constant at 10.0 per cent.

The numbers are disappointing. In the household survey, the number of people not in the labour force, but who currently want a job rose by 263,000, which helped hold the unemployment rate down. And the percent of people who are unemployed, discouraged, or working part time because they can’t find full time work rose by 0.1 percentage points to 17.3 per cent in December, though it remains below October’s level.

But in a small bright spot November’s job loss of 11,000 was revised to a jobs gain of 4,000. A minor revision, especially as the economy lost an additional 16,000 jobs than previously estimated, bringing jobs lost in that month to -127,000 in October, but still, a month of gains after 22 months of losses.

So who were December’s winners in an arguably downbeat report? Read more