From Savannah River Site furloughs 2,000 workers at SavannahNow: About 2,000 workers at the Savannah River Site near Aiken will be working reduced schedules starting next month because of the federal budget cuts. Other employees will be laid off. […]…
President Obama’s State of the Union speech on Tuesday will be about economic inequality and the struggles of the middle class, but this week’s most important speech about the American middle class was almost certainly an address given today by Federal Reserve Vice Chair Janet Yellen: A Painfully Slow Recovery for America’s Workers: Causes, Implications, and the Federal Reserve’s Response.
The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for November was revised from +161,000 to
+247,000, and the change for December was revised from +155,000 to +196,000. Monthly revisions
result from additional reports received from businesses since the last published estimates and the
monthly recalculation of seasonal factors. The annual benchmark process also contributed to these
revisions.
I was accused of being a crazy pessimist years ago too when I wrote about the Savannah housing market, but I called the bust pretty well — although I should have been more aggressive much sooner in my City Talk columns. But that pessimism wasn’t bias — it was just a realistic assessment based on objective data.
As a close follower of the work of Bill McBride at Calculated Risk, I’ve been keeping up with and writing about construction employment and residential investment for many, many months.
In a perfectly logical world, public employment (i.e., government jobs) would increase on pace with population growth.
We would add more teachers, police officers, sanitation workers, health services employees and the like as the population warrants.
A few weeks ago, it was widely assumed that fears of going over the so-called “fiscal cliff” would cause employment to stagnate.
Things didn’t really work out that way. Hiring continued at a decent pace in December.
The unemployment rate has been tumbling even as more people join the workforce. These are robust trends.
A fascinating report from NPR’s All Things Considered on Saturday: Not Just Patriotic, U.S. Manufacturing May Be Smart
This is a shockingly good report. The disruptions Hurricane Sandy were expected to have a significant negative impact on these numbers.
Hurricane Sandy certainly had an impact on jobs — a major one — but it’s hard to say just how bad tomorrow’s jobs data for November will be.
I might have a little more to say about the 3rd quarter Economic Monitor prepared by Armstrong Atlantic State University’s Center for Regional Analysis, directed by economist Michael Toma, but things are getting better in the local economy. Given the rebounds in tourism and port traffic and given the visibly significant degree of new developments in the greater downtown area, it’s not surprising that employment data are looking strong.
Joe Weisenthal has a great interview with Bill McBride today at Business Insider: The Genius Who Invented Economics Blogging Reveals How He Got Everything Right And What’s Coming Next.
