Good morning everyone, the December jobs number was just announced and is good but not good enough, kind of like getting a kiss on the cheek from your sister, its nice but you would rather get a kiss from your wife or girl friend. The headline number is a gain of 103k vs an expectation of 150k+ so the futures market is selling off sharply as the market had moved up in anticipation that jobs created would be higher. A positive item is that the unemployment rate dropped down to 9.4% from 9.8% which is much better than expected. November’s number was revised from 39k to 71k and as I always say, in an good economy, economic numbers are revised for the better. I am sticking to my thesis that the global economy is getting better and expanding, but this expansion is prone to many fits and starts. The private sector or non-government hiring was up 113k vs 162k expectation and November was revised from 50k to 79k to the better. The work week stayed the same at 34.3 which was as expected so employers are not working their staff any longer and they will need to do so before they hire more employees. The drop in the unemployment rate to 9.4% from 9.7% is most likely due the expiration of benefits and possibly some seasonal effects.
