Friday, January 06, 2006

Employment Situation Preview: December 2005

Greetings from Atlanta! I am still on vacation until Tuesday, but I thought I'd check in to share the wonderful (yet unreported) news from the Labor Department (PDF file). It goes to the tune of a drop in unemployment, a rise in employment, and 108,000 new jobs. Also, average hourly earnings jumped five cents to $16.34, an increase of 0.3% for the month and a quarterly (three-month average) increase of 0.8% between the third and fourth quarters of 2005.

Meanwhile, the MSM is keeping the good news on the DL (down low, not D.L. Hughley). The NYT chimed in with their typical naysaying, harping that the pace of growth is slowing and the job creation missed expectations. Nearly every month of 2005 showed forecasters overshooting the mark for job creation, and all the while major newspapers overhyped this point to death.

Sadly, you'll all have to wait until I return from my trip for the complete analysis. Keep an eye out for the year ending Consumer Price Index news in the upcoming weeks as the media prepares to spin yet another piece of good news into a dire outlook for 2006.

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