Total employment gains in the first quarter of 2019 were significantly less than those of the first quarter of 2018. And the task of matching last year’s gains only becomes more difficult as we move into the second quarter. Subscribe now!

While the latest gain in total payroll suggests a rebound from the February lull, the details of the report indicate that employment gains are becoming unevenly distributed across the economy. Such a configuration is common as we transition into the Boom phase of the expansion. Subscribe now!

Hiring in the trucking sector was little changed. The details that we need to figure out whether this is anything other than one of the small month-to-month changes so often seen on this chart won’t be available for at least a month. And, by that time, there could have been other changes in the February […]

This series is a great favorite among those of us who follow the jobs numbers because it has shown itself to be a leading indicator of overall employment. And that characteristic comes from the fact that this series usually makes both its cycle highs and cycle lows ahead of total payroll employment. Based on the […]

The gains you see here over the past five months square up nicely with what we have been reading about the building of business inventories. This is where the inventories first get processed. And, we know from looking at some of the trade data, that imports of both consumer and industrial goods accelerated in the […]

This chart is one of the reasons the headline numbers for January and February look the way they do. The drop in employment in February included every category in the construction sector. Construction of buildings was down 4,600. Heavy construction was down 13,200. Specialty trade contractors (the people who work inside to finish structures) was […]

These numbers are harder to read, mostly because they are subject to major revisions. The total change you see on the chart was the result of another bunch of small ups and downs combining, in this case, to a small up. The question now, as it was at this time last year when we saw […]

Retail employment was down 6,100 mainly because Health and Personal care stores, who employ 1,048,000 of the 15,826,600 people who work in retail, shed 11,700 jobs. Department stores, who employ 1,133,200 people, shed 9,000 jobs. That combined decline was largely offset by a bunch (used it again) of small gains and losses in the rest […]

Health care looks to have reverted to the mean in February following large gains in both December and January. I don’t read this as a sign of weakness. Employment at ambulatory health care services was up 15,500. The gain for the sector as a whole was 22,500. Health care employment has been up in the […]

In January, paced by large gains in arts, entertainment and recreation, this series added an upwardly revised 89,000 jobs to total payrolls. In February, paced by a small decline in the arts, entertainment and recreation sector that was perfectly offset by a gain in the accommodation and food services category, the net change was zero. […]