Posts Tagged ‘jobs’
Friday, March 8th, 2019
Article source: ConstructConnect
February’s Employment Situation report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics delivered the kind of U.S. total employment change, month to month, that we have become unaccustomed to seeing. Net jobs growth was quite weak, at only +20,000. It’s been 17 months since the figure was comparably low, +18,000 in September 2017.
Over the last several years, the month-to-month jobs gain has usually been at least +175,000, often exceeding +200,000. In the first month of this year, January, it was +311,000.
On the brighter side, the unemployment rate in the latest month improved to 3.8% from 4.0% in the prior period.
There was only one major industrial sector with a substantial pick-up in nominal number of jobs in January, ‘professional and business services,’ +42,000. The staffing increases were evenly and widely spread among segments of the sector (e.g., accounting, design, computer, and help-wanted services).
‘Education and health services’ added just 4,000 jobs, but that was because education services declined by -19,000 jobs. ‘Health care and social assistance’ wasn’t shy about hiring, lifting its combined payroll by +23,000.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, construct, Economy, employment, Growth, job, jobless, jobs, Labor, market
Comments Off on A Chill in U.S. February Employment Numbers, Canada’s Performance Perkier
Thursday, January 24th, 2019
Construction spending in various type-of structure categories is driven by economic circumstances within specific industrial subsectors. For example, manufacturers set the pace in industrial construction.
 Good health in the leisure and hospitality sector provides the backing for new hotel and motel work. And jobs levels in information and financial services, as well as in more rapidly expanding fields of endeavor such as computer systems and design services, establish the need for additional office space and commercial tower square footage. (See, “Shifts in Office Jobs and Implications for Commercial Tower Construction.”)
This article is the fifth in a series of seven that examines key industrial sectors to determine where they are most prominent regionally. Rankings of state strength in each industrial subsector are based on both ‘weight’ and ‘concentration’ of relevant employment. ‘Weight’ is simply the number of jobs in the industrial subsector in each state. ‘Concentration’ is each state’s number of jobs in the subsector divided by the state’s population. In effect, it’s a ‘per capita’ figure, except that it’s expressed as number of jobs per million population.
By ‘weight,’ the states with the largest populations are almost always high in the rankings. The rankings by ‘concentration,’ however, often deliver a jolt of surprise or two.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, ConstructConnect, employ, employment, Growth, job, jobs
Comments Off on Series (5 of 7): Rankings of States by Industrial Subsector Jobs – Computer Systems Design
Wednesday, January 16th, 2019
Article source: ConstructConnect
Construction spending in various type-of structure categories is driven by economic circumstances within specific industrial subsectors. For example, manufacturers set the pace in industrial construction.
Good health in the leisure and hospitality sector provides the backing for new hotel and motel work. And jobs levels in information and financial services, as well as in more rapidly expanding fields of endeavor such as computer systems and design services, establish the need for additional office space and commercial tower square footage. (See, “Shifts in Office Jobs and Implications for Commercial Tower Construction.”)
This article is the second in a series of seven that examines key industrial sectors to determine where they are most prominent regionally. Rankings of state strength in each industrial subsector are based on both ‘weight’ and ‘concentration’ of relevant employment. ‘Weight’ is simply the number of jobs in the industrial subsector in each state. ‘Concentration’ is each state’s number of jobs in the subsector divided by the state’s population. In effect, it’s a ‘per capita’ figure, except that it’s expressed as number of jobs per million population.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, ConstructConnect, Construction industry, Economic, Economics, Economist, employment, house, Housing, job, jobless, jobs, Labor, market, material, money
Comments Off on Series (2 of 7): Rankings of States by Industrial Subsector Jobs – Financial Services
Tuesday, January 8th, 2019
Article source: ConstructConnect
The total number of jobs in the U.S. rose by +312,000 in December, according to the latest Employment Situation report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
There was only one other month in 2018 with a greater surge in jobs creation, February at +324,000.
Optimism over hiring prospects caused the participation rate in December to climb to 63.1% from 62.9% the month previously (i.e., more out-of-work individuals decided to rejoin the labor force). The side effect was that the unemployment rate moved up to 3.9% from 3.7% in November.
The large month-to-month gain in jobs in December understates the overall improvement, since there was also a substantial positive revision to prior data. A month ago, the BLS reported a total jobs level of 149.893 million. It is now saying that November’s figure was really 149.951 million, an increase of +58,000.
Therefore, December’s just-reported level of 150.263 million exceeds November’s first-reported level of 149.893 million by +370,000 jobs.
By industry sector, the largest revisions to November’s jobs statistics came from ‘retail’ (+18,000), ‘government’ (+16,000) and ‘leisure and hospitality’ (+14,000).
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Tags: Alex Carrick, build, Canada, CMD, ConstructConnect, Construction, Construction services, Economic, Economics, Economist, jobs, Labor, manufacturing, market, money
Comments Off on December Jobs Reports: U.S. Ends 2018 with Bang; Canada with Whimper
Friday, December 7th, 2018
Article source: ConstructConnect
There was a dramatic reversal in fortune on the jobs front between the U.S. and Canada in November.
It wasn’t that the U.S. number from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) was so bad. At +155,000, it slowed from +237,000 the month before, but it was still a solid increase.
Rather, it was that Canada set a blistering pace. Statistics Canada’s figure of +94,000 jobs was the biggest monthly increase in more than six-and-a-half years, dating back to March 2012 (also +94,000).
Canada’s unemployment rate in November improved to 5.6%, the lowest it’s been in more than 40 years.
America’s unemployment rate stayed the same in November as in October, but keep in mind that the current level of 3.7% is the tightest in almost 50 years.
Canada may have had a better November than the U.S., but for year-to-date 2018, it’s been the latter that has been vastly outperforming the former.
U.S. monthly average jobs creation so far this year has been +206,000, +12.7% above last year’s comparable figure of +183,000.
Canada’s monthly average jobs bump to date in 2018 has been only +14,000, -58% versus January-November 2017’s climb of +33,000.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, Canada, Cannabis, ConstructConnect, Construction industry, Economic, Economics, Economist, Economy, job, jobless, jobs, Labor, unemployment
Comments Off on November Jobs Creation: U.S. +155,000; Canada +94,000
Friday, November 2nd, 2018
According to the latest Employment Situation report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the total number of jobs in the U.S. in October rose by 250,000, an outstanding gain.
Because the participation increased slightly, from 62.7% in September to 62.9% in October (i.e., more people re-entered the work force), the unemployment rate stayed the same as the month before, at 3.7%.
What’s important to remember, though, is that a 3.7% American jobless figure is a 50-year low.
According to the latest Labour Force Survey results published by Statistics Canada, total employment north of the border in October bobbed up by a relatively anemic 11,000 jobs.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, Economic, Economist, Economy, employ, employment, Growth, job, jobs, market
Comments Off on Big October U.S. Jobs Gain Has Fed Interest Rate Implications; Meanwhile, Canada Quiet on the Jobs Front
Friday, August 3rd, 2018
Article source: ConstructConnect
The lead paragraph of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)’s July Employment Situation report highlights that total nonfarm payroll employment in the U.S. rose by 157,000 jobs during the latest month.
And that the unemployment rate declined again to 3.9% from 4.0% in June. The lowest the unemployment rate has reached in this cycle was 3.8% two months ago, in May.
Historically, the U.S. unemployment rate never falls much lower. The last time it was 3.8% was in April of 2000. Eighteen years have passed since then.
The seasonally adjusted (SA) unemployment rate through the first seven months of this year has averaged 4.0%. During the same time frame of last year, it was 4.5%.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, CMDGroup, Connect, construct, ConstructConnect, Economic, employment, job, jobless, jobs, Labor, market, money
Comments Off on Manufacturing and Construction Both Winners in U.S. July Jobs Report
Wednesday, August 1st, 2018
Article source: ConstructConnect
Computers, the Internet and other high-tech advances have profoundly affected the workaday lives of every one of us.
Many of the thought-leaders who have sparked the innovation waves have become celebrities beyond the confines of the business sector. And their companies have been richly rewarded through enormous increases in the value of their shares on the major stock markets.
Never mind that Netflix and Facebook have recently had some setbacks, the FAANG companies (Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google), along with many others (Twitter, Uber), have soared in value over the past decade-plus.
We’ve been living through a new industrial revolution. But there has long been one quibble raised by economists and others about these transformative times.
Historically, the birth of the auto industry, with its accompanying need for assembly plants, steel mills and gasoline stations, generated millions of new jobs.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, ConstructConnect, Economy, employment, Growth, job, jobless, jobs, Labor, market
Comments Off on Disconnect Between High-tech’s Influence and the High-tech Sector’s Jobs Creation
Friday, July 6th, 2018
Article source: ConstructConnect
June’s Employment Situation report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) records a pickup in total jobs of +213,000 in the latest month.
But that +213,000 compares June’s level of total jobs with a revised figure for May. May’s figure is now being estimated higher by +37,000 vis à vis what was reported for May a month ago.
Therefore, June’s level of total U.S. jobs is now +250,000 (i.e., the sum of 213,000 and 37,000) versus what was reported by the BLS a month ago. That’s an increase in total employment of a quarter of a million jobs.
The gain in U.S. total employment through the first half of this year has been 1.3 million jobs. In H1 of last year, the increase was 1.1 million.
The monthly average climb so far in 2018 has been +215,000. Through the first six months of 2017, the monthly average increment was also good, but it was a somewhat lower +184,000.
Expressed another way, the monthly average jobs jump in first-half of 2018 has been +17% compared with the first-half of 2017.
The unemployment rate in June fell back slightly to 4.0% from 3.8% in May. The retreat was because the continuation of strong employment prospects has caused a month-to-month uptick in the participation rate, to 62.9% from 62.7%.
Among industrial sub-sectors, the three standouts for jobs improvement in June were: ‘education and health services’, +54,000; ‘professional and business services’, +50,000; and in a long-time-coming and pleasantly-welcome development, ‘manufacturing’, +36,000.
The leap in manufacturing employment was almost all within the durable goods realm, +32,000.
And within durable goods, hiring was most intense in ‘motor vehicles and parts’, +12,000; ‘fabricated metal products’, +7,000; and ‘computer and electronic products’, +5,000.
The +54,000 jog upwards in ‘educational and health services’ employment was comprised of ‘educational services’, +19,000; ‘health care’, +25,000; and ‘social assistance’, +10,000.
Staffing in ‘professional and business services’ (+50,000) received boosts from ‘temporary help services’, +9,000; ‘architectural and engineering services’, +7,000; and ‘computer systems design and related design’, +6,000.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, ConstructConnect, Construction industry, Economic, Economics, Economist, Economy, employ, employment, Growth, job, jobless, jobs, money
Comments Off on U.S. June Total Jobs Higher by One-quarter Million Versus Previously Reported May
Tuesday, May 29th, 2018
Article source: ConstructConnect
Aficionados of horror movies know there are certain things – e.g., the proximity of Frankenstein’s monster – that will cause ‘the villagers’ to pick up their pitchforks and charge into the woods for a confrontation. It’s widely understood that the ‘villagers’ are you and me.
Such works may be escapist fiction, but while basic safety and security will always be a primary concern in real life, there are other terrors in non-fiction that are equally likely to incite our concern and ire and they’re mainly economic – e.g., a scarcity of jobs or sky-high prices.
With respect to inflation and rapidly increasing price levels, this article looks at three products that for many people are essentials – rent, gasoline and coffee.
Charts 1 through 6 show the year-over-year percentage changes of the rent, gasoline and coffee sub-indices within the broader Consumer Price Index (CPI) data produced by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and Statistics Canada.
In the U.S., media headlines immediately prior to Memorial Day Weekend carried the message that travelers taking to the roads were about to discover that a fill-up at the gas pump would cost them nearly one-third more than a year ago.
The stronger U.S. economy has been contributing to more demand for gasoline. According to the website, www.gasbuddy.com/charts, the average price of gasoline in America is now $3.00 USD per gallon. Last year at the same time, it was $2.40. The increase has been +25%.
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Tags: Alex Carrick, Canada, coffee, Economic, Economics, Economist, Economy, gasoline, job, jobs, Labor, market, material, money, oil, real estate, rent, residential
Comments Off on Monitoring the Cost of 3 of Life’s Essentials: Gasoline, Rent and Coffee
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