November’s non-farm payrolls number was just released and is a massive miss and disappointment to the markets as it demonstrates that hiring is still not picking up as every economist had expected. We are not economists here at Gygi Capital but wow, what a surprise. The headline number is a positive +39k when +150k was expected, the all important private sector was +50k vs. expected +140k. The hourly earnings was flat at 0.0% as a slight increase of 0.1% was expected and the workweek was also flat at 34.3 hours and was just as expected. This means that employees weren’t worked any longer nor paid any more and as I’ve said the sequence of hiring is first that employees are worked longer than paid for that extra work before the employer hires more people. The percent of unemployed workers in the US ticked up to 9.8% and this is not politically sustainable. What I mean by this is that this is going to put pressure on the politicians to break bread and compromise on extending benefits to the unemployed and also extend the Bush tax cuts. If you need some background or an interview for your stories, please call and we will accommodate your request.
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