Jobs? Glass Half Full? Half Empty? Or Broken?

Let’s dig a little deeper into the jobs situation. We expect the January report is going to be a startling one when it is released in early February. It will be the first time we will see the full results of the annual revisions of the benchmarks used by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The revisions will show that there was a net job loss in the United States for the entire decade. We guess the net loss will be about 1 million. … Some of the details in the report show how severe things are. The unemployment rate for college graduates hit a new all-time high of 5%. The fact that 1 in 20 graduates cannot find a job means that the cost pressure from the higher-paid and better-educated element in the labor force has disappeared. Labor cost is about two-thirds of the impetus that triggers inflation. This is another reason why the Fed has plenty of time before it has to raise rates. Inflation is not a threat.