Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Obama Gives it Up and "Friday's Employment Report: Best Since 1983?"

Mystery/history anyone?
A twofer. First up, Dow Jones via Nasdaq:
President Barack Obama, speaking Wednesday at Carnegie Mellon University on the economy, said he expects strong job growth to be reported Friday....MORE
HT chain: Jesse's Cafe to Clusterstock

And from Bespoke Investment Group:

Even though jobless claims remain elevated, estimates for Friday's employment report are getting more bullish by the day. As of 6/2, economists are expecting non farm payrolls for the month of May to increase by over 510K. If these forecasts are accurate, it would be the largest single month increase in jobs since 1983!

So how would this type of increase affect the unemployment rate? Assuming that the size of the labor force remains constant (a big if), a 510K increase in jobs would take the unemployment rate from 9.9% down to 9.5% (see table to the right). To get the rate below 9%, and once again assuming that the size of the labor force remains constant, we would need to see an increase of 1,415K jobs....MORE