August Jobs Stunner May Be Reality Check
The US economy added just 235,000 jobs in August, the government said Friday, far fewer than anticipated.
It was an astounding miss. Consensus expected 725,000 (figure below).
While expectations for a third consecutive blockbuster cooled in the wake of a disappointing ADP report earlier in the week, market participants have learned not to extrapolate from ADP in the pandemic era. So, the weak read on private payrolls didn't move consensus as much as it might have in "normal" times.
No economi
Meanwhile, down under, The Christmas Supply Chain is already falling apart — so just add that dynamic into concerns about labor and Covid evolution and mutations. One of Covid-19’s economic lessons has been to demonstrate the super weird elasticity of simultaneously stretching out supply and demand curves and thus allowing us all to live in a chaotic non linear singularity, where economics, politics, media and normalcy are antiquated concepts.
“But even if you are buying it eight to twelve months out, the chances of it arriving on time is zero,” he said. “If it’s not in the shed or on the shelf today, for Christmas this year I think the chances of it being [in stock] come that peak time is incredibly remote.”
Mr Heraghty said shoppers should certainly consider “getting in early” and doing their Christmas shopping now, with current delays expected to stretch well into next year and potentially even through to 2023.:
Mr. H:
Has anyone done any meaningful research into the effects of the pandemic on America’s immigrant labor force? I am Mexican-American, and I live in Los Angeles. I do not want to begin any debate about the merits of immigration in this country, but I am well aware of immigrant workers who often “obtain” social security numbers in order to appear to be working here legally. These workers pay taxes, but when they lose their jobs they never file for unemployment for fear of revealing their true immigration status. When the pandemic hit, these workers–many of whom work in the service industry–lost their jobs. Unable to find work, or claim unemployment, many of them may have returned to Central and Latin America. While those areas were certainly also hit by the pandemic, they did not shut down their economies, and some work was still available for those willing to risk exposure to the virus. (Some of our local schools even saw declining enrollment during this time period possibly as a result.) If those workers have yet to return to the U.S. in any meaningful numbers, that could explain why employers, particularly in the service industries, have consistently been unable to fill at least some of their available jobs.