Economics Update

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Unemployment Population Ratio: Still Not Back

The lede here has to be the non-farm payroll (NFP) numbers for April, which were very, very, good.

There was in increase in payrolls of 290,000 , which was the largest increase since March of 2006, and manufacturing added 44,000 jobs, the largest increase in 12 years.

Additionally, as Paul Krugman observes, "My favorite indicator from the household survey isn't the unemployment rate, it’s the employment-population ratio — and that’s up, from 58.6 to 58.8."

It's been rising since December.

Unfortunately, unemployment worsened, though part of this was discouraged workers returning to work:

But. Keep an eye on those unemployment rates. The headline figure is back up at 9.9%, the highest it’s been this year. The U-6 underemployment rate is a gruesome 17.1%. And U-4, which is total unemployed plus discouraged workers, has hit a new high of 10.6%."

Even at nearly 300,000 new jobs a month, it will take years for these people to find work again.

Additionally, we have the short-term good/long-term bad news that consumers are using credit once again. Consumer borrowing rose by $2 billion in March.

In energy and currency, it appears that Greece, and the recent UK elections have created uncertainty, which has driven oil prices lower, and the dollar was mixed, up slightly versus the Pound, and down slightly versus the Euro.