US July non-farm payrolls beat expectations, temper calls for QE 3
-Non-farm payrolls rose by 163,000 (Consensus: 100,000).
-Household survey shows employment falling in last 3 months
-Average hourly earnings rise by 0.1% on month (Consensus:0.2%)
-Average work week remains at 34.5 hours
-Unemployment rate ticks up to 8.3%
-Manufacturing payrolls increase by 25,000 (Consensus: 10,000)
-Non-farm payrolls rose by 163,000 (Consensus: 100,000).
-Household survey shows employment falling in last 3 months
-Average hourly earnings rise by 0.1% on month (Consensus:0.2%)
-Average work week remains at 34.5 hours
-Unemployment rate ticks up to 8.3%
-Manufacturing payrolls increase by 25,000 (Consensus: 10,000)
The United States has to still to recover half the jobs lost during the financial crisis, but there may be some new indications in today´s July employment report that certain progress has been made as the economy reinvents itself and attempts to rebalance.
Furthermore, for at least some economists today´s positive surprise may herald a small trend that could, at the least, see the Federal Reserve postpone any further round of quantitative easing past September. Nevertheless, market commentary in this respect is rather mixed.
Thus, including the July gain, the U.S. has recovered 4 million of the 8.8 million jobs lost as a result of the 18-month recession which ended in June 2009.
Following on from the above, if one looks at the so-called Establishment survey data it differs from the Household in the methods used to collect the data- at least some of the drivers of the gain in non-farm payrolls have changed vis-à-vis what was the norm not too long ago. Gains in employment within the retail, government, construction and financial sectors were muted at best whereas manufacturing powered ahead (generating 25,000 jobs and ahead of the 10,000 foreseen).
One must be careful of not exaggerating the above, however, but there are some signs of it.
In any case, non-farm payrolls grew by 163,000 in July, whereas the consensus expectation was for an increase of 100,000, led by a gain of 172,000 in the private sector (Consensus: 110,000).