occupazione

[Peri]

Buonasera a tutti,
mi trasferisco in questo luogo più tranquillo. Ormai il forum principale è ingestibile. Per gli interessati, posto un escerto da the big picture, in merito ai recenti dati sull'occupazione. In effetti, la cosa era sfuggita anche a me.

Lies, Damned Lies, and Government Unemployment Numbers
There are some who see a ray of hope in the recent jobless claims reports, which have dropped back to “only” 467,000 in initial unemployment claims, down from 491,000for the last week, after being over 500,000 for several weeks. Those numbers are seasonally adjusted. That hope disappears if you look at the actual numbers. For the current reporting week ending January 3, 2009, the advance number of initial claims came in at 726,420. Last week’s advance number was 717,000. We have been above 600,000 new initial claims every week since the third week of November. Continuing claims jumped massively, by 744,000 to 5,316,124.
No conspiracy here. This is what happens when you try to smooth a volatile trend by using seasonal adjustments. If you use past performance as the tool by which you smooth the trend, when the trend changes, the seasonally adjusted numbers will be either too large or too small. Thus, the data understated the growth of jobs in 2003 because recent past performance had been bad, and it is now understating the number of unemployment claims and actual unemployment.
In December, the number of unemployed persons increased by a seasonally adjusted 632,000 to 11.1 million and the unemployment rate rose to 7.2%. Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed persons has grown by 3.6 million, and the unemployment rate has risen by 2.3% and is now at 7.2%.
I happened to be watching CNBC at the time of the release of the data, and several commentators remarked how much better the number was than they thought it would be. I wish they were right, but again, the actual numbers showed a loss of 954,000 jobs, over 50% more than the headline number reported in the press
release. And that assumes that new businesses created 72,000 jobs from the birth/death model that I so frequently write about. It is possible that almost 1 million jobs were lost in December. I doubt the market would have liked that number.
I should note that the Bureau of Labor Statistics does not hide that number. You can find it if you dig for it. But most analysts seem to prefer just to take the press release and go with it. And most of the time that is fine. But in times like this, when trends are changing, you miss the bigger picture and get misleading data.
Unemployment could rise to 9-10% or more this year and on into 2010. That means we could easily see another 3 million lost jobs over the next year. That is going to put a lot of negative pressure on consumer spending. It also means that wages are not likely to rise, and we have already hard evidence of wages falling in many industries as companies try to find ways to remain solvent.
And that 9% will be the headline number. If you add people who have part-time jobs but would like a full-time job, and what are called marginally attached workers, the current rate is already 13.5%.
Average hours worked dropped to the lowest level since they began collecting data in 1964, as did hourly income. Given the increasing difficulty for consumers to borrow money and with income dropping, plus increased savings on the part of consumers, it is difficult to see how pricing power is going to come back any time soon.
This problem is multiplied throughout the developed world. The developing world, which sells products and goods to the US and European consumers, is starting to feel the pinch. Chinese and other Asian exports are dropping (more on that in future letters, but the data is ugly).
Overcapacity, rising unemployment, imploding leverage, lack of borrowing and/or lending, a serious retreat by consumers, and increased savings are all the conditions needed to bring about deflation. Left unchecked, we could soon see something like what Japan has experienced, and even potentially worse, as they started with a savings rate of 13%. But deflation is not going to be left unchecked. It will be fought by central banks everywhere with low rates and the printing press, as well as government spending. And so, let’s turn our attention to that process. [...]

[SoloDallas]

Buonasera a te, Peri.
Si l'ho letto anche io oggi (non ricordo se l'ho trovato su marketoracle).
Era tempo che leggevo altrove (direttamente da cittadini US che scrivono su forum di trading) che il vero tasso di disoccupazione fosse più elevato. Non mi sorprende affatto che lo sia.
Anche se - da profondamente inesperto di cose economiche e finanziarie - il "gut feeling" è super gloomy per me. Ovvero, mi sembra davvero che sia in arrivo un disastro di dimensioni bibliche. Da "The Day After". Da raggiungere in qualche anno, non di colpo.
Se si guarda ad alcune immagini recenti, US, lo scenario apocalittico è già visibile in diversi casi:

http://www.time.com/time/photogaller...810098,00.html

e

http://www.time.com/time/photogaller...738458,00.html

[Peri]

ciao, tendenzialmente sono d'accordo. In particolare bisognerà seguire la vicenda del piano Obama, che per molti aspetti pare ingenuo, ad essere benevoli.
Inoltre, penso abbia ragione chi pensa che non abbia senso sommare politiche quantitative delle banche centrali a stimoli fiscali. O l'uno o l'altro. Sarà a questo proposito da vedere l'andazzo dei treasuries. (che forse sarebbero da shortare, detto francamente).
buona serata.