Jobs Report Was Good Even Though Unemployment Ticked Up

Last updated on February 8th, 2013 at 12:18 am

I am sure the the conservative talking heads are talking about todays jobs report because the unemployment number ticked up by 1/10th of a percent. It seems that is the only time they spend more than a minute talking about these reports. When the number is better, they all sprint past this and move onto some obscure news clip that they can spin more into their favor.

So lets dig into the data, it turns out that the tick up in unemployment was merely statistical, participation didn’t really increase but November and December job numbers had enormous upward revisions. November up from +161k to +247k, and December up from +155k to +196k.

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So, where were the jobs created? Of course healthcare added jobs, as this industry continues to grow due to demand for health services. This industry added, 23,000 people in January.

Manufacturing remained unchanged, but mining and much needed construction jobs were added to the nation’s economy.

The ISM manufacturing index indicated expansion in January. PMI was at 53.1% in January, up from 50.2% in December. The employment index was at 54.0%, up from 51.9%, and the new orders index was at 53.3%, up from 49.7% in December

Also, according to MarketWatch, OMI has reached a nine month high.

So it looks like 2013 is on track to be better than 2012. Not blazing, but growing steadily. Remember, we don’t have a financial bubble or tech bubble to blow up any longer. So this is what a real economy looks like without public consumer demand. If we, as a nation, pumped more money into technology manufacturing and infrastructure, the economy would have been booming along time ago.

You would figure conservatives would see that considering the United Kingdom is heading toward their third recession since 2008, thanks to austerity and of course, President Reagan pumping billions into the economy in the early 80s.