U.S. Review

Employment Not so Bad; Manufacturing Getting Better

  • Employment fell just 216,000 with job losses concentrated in construction and manufacturing. Wage growth remains limited such that personal income and thereby consumption gains will also limit the pace of economic recovery.
  • Manufacturing gains were signaled by the ISM manufacturing index with improvement in orders, production and vendor performance. Economic recovery with low inflation remains the outlook. However, the pace and sustainability of growth remains dependent on the exit strategies for both fiscal and monetary policies.
The Many Faces of Recovery

The economy presents many different faces depending on how we peel through the data to reveal the inner core. While on the surface economic signals for recovery are there, there is a creeping uneasiness that the character of this recovery already is different than prior recoveries. In August, the ISM manufacturing index broke above the 50 breakeven with gains in new orders, production and supplier deliveries. New orders, which preface production and employment advances, have been a very reliable leading indicator of recovery. Yet, beneath the surface lurks twin evils of weak employment and rising prices. The employment index remains below breakeven and manufacturing jobs have declined 76,000 over the last three months. Meanwhile, prices paid have risen steadily and are far above breakeven, suggesting upward pressure on input prices for production and thereby further depressing corporate profits.

Employment, both an economic and a political benchmark, serves as a lightening rod for the progress and character of the economic recovery. Employment fell 216,000 in August compared to 276,000 in July, with service-producing jobs declining much less than goods-producing. In fact, job losses in manufacturing actually rose to 63,000 from 43,000. Education and health was the big gainer but this may be overstated due to seasonal adjustment factors. Average hourly earnings declined by 2.6 percent year-over-year, and combined with job losses, suggest that earned personal income remains weak. Consumer spending will also likely remain subdued.

The unemployment rate for college-educated workers remained at 4.7 percent while the unemployment rate for workers with less than a high school diploma rose to 15.6 percent. In a labor market driven by demand for skilled workers, especially in the service sector, this month’s employment report should not be a surprise. Cyclical recovery in the labor market faces several structural challenges. Progress of employment in this recovery compared to prior recoveries dramatically lags the path of the average gain in employment. First, unemployment is very centralized. Metropolitan area employment data released this week highlighted that of the 19 metro areas with unemployment rates above 15 percent, eight are in California (reflecting housing-related weakness) and five in Michigan (reflecting manufacturing declines).

Second, the first year of an economic recovery has been jobless since the 1970s. This is not a recent phenomenon. One possible culprit is the rising average duration of employment since the 1970s. Secular forces are most likely the culprit here with one likely suspect the increasing percentage of permanent compared to temporary workers over time.

Third, manufacturing job growth peaked in 1994. Manufacturing jobs as a percent of the labor force has been declining since 1979 primarily due primarily to productivity gains and capital/labor substitution in the production process. All of this suggests that the nature of the labor market is changing over time and that cyclical gains are limited by secular change.


Global Review

Canadian Economy Seems Poised for Recovery

  • Canadian GDP contracted at a 3.4 percent annualized pace in the second quarter as net exports of goods and services exerted the largest drag on growth. But GDP for the month of June grew 0.1 percent. While this increase was more modest than expected by the consensus, it may mark the end of the recession for the Canadian economy. It was the first increase in total monthly GDP since July 2008.
  • The job market in Canada has shown early signs of recovery as well. In fact, the economy added 27.1K jobs in August, and the unemployment rate came down a bit.

A Recovery in Global Trade Would be Good for Canada

The slowdown in global trade in general and the recession in the United States in particular continued to be an impediment to Canadian economic growth in the second quarter. Net exports weighed on growth in the second quarter as both imports and exports continued to fall, though the pace of decline was slower than it was in the first quarter of this year. Net exports exerted a 3.5 percentage point drag to the annualized rate of growth for the quarter. Although net exports were the largest negative for growth, various indicators of global trade suggest that international commerce is beginning to pick back up, which means the second quarter may have marked the low point for Canadian trade and the economy may actually receive a boost from net exports in coming months. In fact, while trade was the biggest negative for GDP in Q2, monthly GDP data show that wholesale trade was actually the biggest positive for GDP for the last month of the quarter. The turnaround may already be under way.

Business spending was also negative in the second quarter as companies scrambled to cut costs. Investment in almost all categories of equipment and machinery showed declines during the quarter. Manufacturers have slowed production and have used existing stockpiles to meet current orders, which resulted in another quarter of contraction in inventories. This is the third straight quarter of negative contribution from inventories, and while this negatively impacted second quarter growth it may set the stage for a turnaround in the third quarter.

Domestic Demand Remains Steady

Recent housing data out of Canada have been generally stronger than expected. Investment in residential structures picked up in the second quarter reversing five straight quarters of declines in housing.

But the largest positive contribution to second quarter economic growth came from consumer spending which contributed 1.1 percentage points. As the nearby chart shows, Canadian retail sales fell off a cliff as the financial crisis intensified last fall, but on a sequential basis, they have turned the corner in recent months. If this trend continues and rising consumer spending combines with a turnaround in trade and a rebuilding of inventories, we would not be surprised to see GDP jump in the third quarter.

Job Recovering

Whether or not the Canadian consumer will continue to spend in the months ahead is partly dependent on employment. Monthly changes in Canadian nonfarm payrolls have a tendency to be highly volatile. A six-month moving average (reflected by the line in the bottom chart) can filter out some of the “noise” and reveal the broader trend, which has also picked up in recent months. The bulk of the layoffs appear to be behind us. In fact, Canada added 27.1K jobs in August, and the unemployment rate came down to 8.7 percent. One month does not a trend make, but if this sort of job growth proves sustainable, it could be supportive of consumer spending during the recovery.

Canadian Employment