For some reason, politicians always say the word "jobs" three times. Coincidentally, there are three jobs reports this week. Two of them were today, neither of them good.
The Challenger report showed that job cuts are up 60% over last month. The ADP report showed that net job growth continued for the 18th straight month, with 114 thousand new private sector jobs in July, down from 145 thousand in June. While that sounds good, since there is some growth, we need at least 200 thousand new jobs monthly to make a dent in unemployment. (The only good news is that small business has produced jobs for twenty straight months.)
The third jobs report this week is the grandfather of all economic reports and comes out this Friday morning. Last month, the survey of economists were expecting 100 thousand new jobs and were surprised to find only 18 thousand were created. The survey now indicates 80 thousand new jobs will be reported this Friday. If we are much below that number, it will likely be another ugly day on Wall Street.
At least, we are not losing 700 thousand jobs each month . . .
