patrick.net

Okay, so 353,000 jobs added versus estimate of 185,000

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/02/02/us-economy-added-353000-jobs-in-january-much-better-than-expected.html

Out of the 353,000 jobs added:

21% or 74,000 for professional and business services: how many is this from government spending given all the Ukraine weapons and Biden infrastructure spending

20% or 70,000 for healthcare : that's great, let's make healthcare the biggest sector due to government spending (medicare, medicaid, subsidized health insurance from Obamacare, etc.)

13% or 45,000 for retail: awesome with more Walmart and Dollar General jobs

10% or 36,000 for government jobs: this speaks for itself

8.5% or 30,000 for social assistance: more government spending such as for undocumented immigrants influx

and 6.5% or 23,000 for manufacturing

BOTTOMLINE: 72.5% of the jobs added most likely are low paying such as retail or nurses aide in a medicaid nursing home, or are government subsidized like a quality engineer working at Raytheon to inspect replenishment weapons for the Ukraine war

richwicks says

AD says

Oh and just one more thing... are the sheep and serfs still believing the economy is in great shape ??

Why not? They believed that Trump was a Putin Puppet for 4 years, and that it was critical to get him out of office because he was mentally impaired, and they are TOTALLY fine with Joe Biden being obviously senile and don't care he's been making deals with Ukraine and China for at least 10 years.

If the propaganda box tells them that toxic sludge is good and a health miracle, they'll be clamoring to purchase it.

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Hard to worry about the economy when you're retired and watching your stonks go up year after year. Hate Biden but love the SPY.

Also hasten to add : Not a boomer and "OK Xer" isn't a thing yet.

stfu says

Hard to worry about the economy when you're retired and watching your stonks go up year after year. Hate Biden but love the SPY.

Also hasten to add : Not a boomer and "OK Xer" isn't a thing yet.

SPY (or S&P 500 index) has only provided a real annualized return of around 5.1% (with dividends reinvested) since January 2000. Nothing spectacular as it was being touted as historically returning 11% a year (when annual inflation was 3%). The last +23 years has been the lost decades.

https://ofdollarsanddata.com/sp500-calculator/

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AD says

stfu says

Hard to worry about the economy when you're retired and watching your stonks go up year after year. Hate Biden but love the SPY.

Also hasten to add : Not a boomer and "OK Xer" isn't a thing yet.

SPY (or S&P 500 index) has only provided a real annualized return of around 5.1% (with dividends reinvested) since January 2000. Nothing spectacular as it was being touted as historically returning 11% a year (when annual inflation was 3%). The last +23 years has been the lost decades.

https://ofdollarsanddata.com/sp500-calculator/

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2000 was the peak of the dot com bubble, and we had the 2008 crisis, so that comparison is a bit lopsided. It does underscore though the need for active trading during certain years decades, while in others buy and hold may do well enough or even better. We left buy and hold after the 2009-2020 prolonged bull cycle, it's been active trading ever since (unless you only hold one of the tech giants who keep making new highs in the face of the broader sideways market and indices).

mell says

2000 was the peak of the dot com bubble, and we had the 2008 crisis, so that comparison is a bit lopsided.

I could see if this was for a 5 year period, but again this is for more 23 years. That reasonably could be almost 75% of your investment period such as someone who starts to save in their mid 20's and retires in late 50's.

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You're both forgetting that investing in the S&P 500 was considered a winning investment strategy. Most folks are told to reduce their stock exposure as they age. Following such sage advice over the last 20 years or so works out to a negative rate of return after inflation.

---- Ahhhhhhhhhh, those investment geniuses at Wall Street.

AD says

mell says

2000 was the peak of the dot com bubble, and we had the 2008 crisis, so that comparison is a bit lopsided.

I could see if this was for a 5 year period, but again this is for more 23 years. That reasonably could be almost 75% of your investment period such as someone who starts to save in their mid 20's and retires in late 50's.

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Misc says

You're both forgetting that investing in the S&P 500 was considered a winning investment strategy. Most folks are told to reduce their stock exposure as they age. Following such sage advice over the last 20 years or so works out to a negative rate of return after inflation.

---- Ahhhhhhhhhh, those investment geniuses at Wall Street.

The winning trade would have been to sell in 2007 and buy back in 2009, their return would look entirely different, even if just following indexes. Also while it's true that inflation makes this a toss up or even a loss, don't forget many boomers coast on inflation safe vehicles, SS/Medicare, prop 13, rent control and many other discounts they enjoy. Again inflation is hitting the youth the worst, they have no such vehicles at their disposal and have to buy in at today's prices with today's national debt.

Misc says

You're both forgetting that investing in the S&P 500 was considered a winning investment strategy. Most folks are told to reduce their stock exposure as they age. Following such sage advice over the last 20 years or so works out to a negative rate of return after inflation.

---- Ahhhhhhhhhh, those investment geniuses at Wall Street.

Yeah, I think the general formula is 100 minus your age as far as percentage in stocks. For my IRAs (rollover/traditional and Roth) I am 50% investment grade bonds and 50% index funds.

Bonds like Vanguard's Total Bond Fund (ticker: BND) took a ~30% hit because of rising interest rates, but I think bond funds like BND will fare a lot better for the next cycle before the Fed has to raise rates again due to a new stage of inflation.

I did state in my post that the CNBC's and Kiplinger's were touting the S&P 500 returning an average of 11% a year. From I remember that was back around 2002.

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Wayfair to lay off 12% of workforce. So keep drinking the Democrat kool aid as far as how great the economy is.

https://fortune.com/2024/01/23/wayfair-layoffs-ceo-niraj-shah-laziness/

See my post above ( https://patrick.net/post/1216871/2012-09-24-layoffs?start=11#comment-2031817 ) explaining the bullshitness in the recent jobs report.

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The job market looks solid on paper.

In 2023, unemployment hit a 54-year-low at 3.4% in January, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that U.S. employers added 2.7 million people to the payroll the same year. But it’s a different story for active job seekers.

A staffing firm Insight Global found that recently unemployed full-time workers applied to an average of 30 jobs, only to receive an average of four callbacks or responses. So why does it feel so hard to get a job right now and is the U.S. labor market as strong as it seems?

See more at CNBC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHaDrM8EgYg

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Notice how unemployment claims are just below 2 million and have steadied around that number. The steadying means its not necessarily a very good job market as the unemployment number is not slowly decreasing.

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Governments are hiring enough DEI employees to make sure the unemployment rate remains low.

..

https://www.mypanhandle.com/news/local-news/bay-county/lynn-haven/maximus-to-close-lynn-haven-office-in-may/

see above ...this federal contracted call center is shutting down and laying off 100 who work at the Lynn Haven, FL office (about 5 miles from Panama City Beach)

they are looking to replace these 100 onsite call center jobs with work-from-home jobs

makes sense as it seems call center jobs can be more work-from-home jobs

Omni Interactions which is a company that offers call center services advertises a lot on work-from-home sites like Work At Home Queen and Rat Race Rebellion

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If history is any indication.

Yeah Eman, and that is why the "great" jobs growth numbers are driven mostly by health care, social assistance and government based on latest data from Mish Talk website.

21.24% of the new jobs added in 2023 were government
9.06% of the new jobs added in 2023 were social assistance
22.31% of the new jobs added in 2023 were health care

so at least 52% of the jobs added in 2023 were government, social assistance and healthcare

most health care is funded with government dollars such as Medicare, Medicaid, Veteran Affairs, or Affordable Care Act (subsidized by tax dollars)
...

Eman says

If history is any indication.

I think we just witnessed the 1st part of the Boomer retirements. Next will be the death job losses for Boomers who didn't save. Then we will get the 3rd and final wave when those that were stubborn, could have retired but are work junkies. I think we're entering a flatline phase.

I mean that graph does look alarming, but the biggest current generation, Millennials are entering prime earning years. Getting lower pay than the Boomers they're replacing, so earnings and growth can go up. Covid was also a fluke in the employment system so who the hell really knows.

Love him or hate him one good move by Biden was the CHIPS Act. https://www.azcentral.com/story/money/business/tech/2023/10/19/tsmc-plant-close-manufacturing-start-date-north-phoenix/71240590007/

Drove by the facility last time out in AZ. It's massive. There's going to more of this stuff happening, So it's not all Joe Biden. Mexico is the future for cheap labor. So companies like Apple are going to have to bring manufacturing back stateside. One positive of Covid is that we're way too reliant on China and having stuff manufactured overseas.

After the Suez Canal Evergreen bockage and now Panama Canal region in a drought and the locks are at risk of not working, we have a massive shipping issue. Stuff is coming back because we have a lot of young and cheap labor with the Boomers going away, we have the ability to replace them and add more.

Where Biden has failed is controlling inflation. It's the reason we've been delaying the build on our next primary home. Yes it's custom, we own the lots but bids are fucking ridiculous. He's also dying in front of our eyes and it is embarrassing. I think we're gonna just pull the trigger regardless this summer/fall and at least break ground and get the foundation going before it freezes.

I'm optimistic about the future if I'm being honest. Probably on average you have $40-50/hr workers being replaced with $20-30/hr workers. That's a massive increase in capital. Investor was returns, so while they'll save some cash, they'll invest into things that create income for them and shareholders. I think this is a post covid blip on the radar. I don't know a single person that can't find a job. My SIL felon works two part time jobs, has an apartment and just went on a cruise with us. She doesn't have money like us remotely, but she no longer qualifies for food stamps. There are jobs to be had and life a fun life. Just takes work.

AD says

Yeah Eman, and that is why the "great" jobs growth numbers are driven mostly by health care, social assistance and government based on latest data from Mish Talk website.

21.24% of the new jobs added in 2023 were government
9.06% of the new jobs added in 2023 were social assistance
22.31% of the new jobs added in 2023 were health care

so at least 52% of the jobs added in 2023 were government, social assistance and healthcare

most health care is funded with government dollars such as Medicare, Medicaid, Veteran Affairs, or Affordable Care Act (subsidized by tax dollars)
...

The whole country is headed to shitholeville status.

WookieMan says

Stuff is coming back because we have a lot of young and cheap labor with the Boomers going away, we have the ability to replace them and add more.

Maybe this is part of the reason for tons of illiterate invaders? Chhhheeeeaaaapppp labor for the factories.

Oddly enough, the supposedly apolitical Fed chair Powell said we need the workers when remarking on the illegal invasion.

GNL says

Maybe this is part of the reason for tons of illiterate invaders? Chhhheeeeaaaapppp labor for the factories.

Probably if I was being honest. I do think it can influence and help skilled workforces here in the states. Hard to tell until it happens. On wave one currently after Covid. So we'll see.

. from today's Yahoo Finance

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/google-lays-off-thousands-more-210822278.html

Google has initiated significant layoffs across its various teams, including the Voice Assistant, hardware, engineering and ad sales teams, marking a continuation of the tech industry’s trend towards reducing workforce expenses. The layoffs have affected hundreds of employees within the Voice Assistant unit; hardware teams responsible for Pixel, Nest and Fitbit products; and a considerable portion of the augmented reality (AR) team. This move is part of Google’s broader effort to streamline operations and align resources with its most significant product priorities.

Late last year, there were already worries within the company that AI was going to begin replacing employees at Alphabet. Futurism reported late last year the technology giant has already begun the process of replacing some jobs with AI tools developed internally. But this differs from what Google's senior vice president, Philipp Schindler, said on a recent earnings call about the recent restructuring and job cuts.

Schindler said, "I want to be clear, when we restructure, there's always an opportunity to be more efficient and smarter in how we service and grow our customers." He went on to say, "We're not restructuring because AI is taking away roles that's important here. But we see significant opportunities here with our AI-powered solution to actually deliver incredible ROI at scale, and that's why we're doing some of those adjustments."

Eman says

If history is any indication.

In the face of massive, unprecedented, levels of illegal immigration. Millions and millions of illiterate, unskilled, 'laborers' from around the world.
Well, the ones I have seen in on-the-street interviews will never compete for work or be productive contributors anyway.

Robert Sproul says

In the face of massive, unprecedented, levels of illegal immigration. Millions and millions of illiterate, unskilled, 'laborers' from around the world.
Well, the ones I have seen in on-the-street interviews will never compete for work or be productive contributors anyway.

How many unskilled workers do we need ? Its like playing a computer simulation game of a civilization or town. There is only a certain percentage of unskilled workers needed in order to optimally ensure a harmonious society AND effective economy.

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