After an initial burst of elation and a short rally in stocks, the market has gone bust, as the devil is still in the details. The details aren't pretty!
First the headline from WSJ:
1) Job quality was poor -- The jobs created were low-wage jobs in hospitality, waste management, retail, and restaurants.
Zero Hedge:
"In light of the composition of today's NFP pickup, driven by retail, waste and administrative and hospitality and leisure, all low-wage jobs, even as Construction jobs posted their first decline in many months on the "housing recovery" and on Hurricane Sandy rebuilding, we refreshed the chart showing that there is a quality not just quantity component to the jobs number. Sadly, the quality, in the form of Y/Y change of average hourly earnings, continues to be non-existent."
2) Geriatric Jobs - Jobs were created for workers over the age of 55, but for workers below that age, there was a decline.
from Zero Hedge:
"What the granular data shows is that instead of a 146K gain in November, there was actually a drop of 114K jobs when broken down by worker "vintage." But where it gets simply stupid, is that of the 4 age group buckets (16-19, 20-24, 25-54, and 55-69), the biggest gainer continued to be America geriatric work force, which added 177 jobs. As for that key segment of the workforce, the 25-54? Jobs here declined by a whopping 359K in November. And this is good news?
Bill Gross tweeted:
"Gross: Equity market rallies b/c 200,000+ workers stop looking for jobs & the U-Rate hits 7.7%. Be careful, Europe in recession, US slowing.
— PIMCO (@PIMCO) December 7, 2012"What was initially perceived as good news, wasn't!
