“Davidson” submits:
The Household Employment rises 1,199,000 and Establishment Survey rises 467,000 on major revision of employment series. Household data is not revised backwards while the Establishment data was revised back to inception(1939). The Household is shown vs the SP500 since Feb 1977 and the Household and Establishment series are shown with their month over month differences since Feb 1977. The purpose for this is to point out that what matters is 1) the employment trend not any particular report better or worse than expected and 2) the differences in the two series represent the degree employment is impacted by the rise or fall in self-employment. The Household data captures the self-employed as the Establishment data does not. Right after government shut down the economy, the self-employed rose sharply. As the economy began to reopen, this level returned to pre-COVID levels. With calls for mandated vaccination, this category rose sharply. With this revision of data sets, future reports may change this observation, but pre-revision data showing a sharp rise in self-employed is supported by anecdotal reports of the rise in firings and voluntary severance.
Bureau of Labor excerpt:
“Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 467,000 in January, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 4.0 percent.”
Media reports that markets are lower on this news. However, if one looks at the detail, it is Apple and Microsoft holding signficiant percentages in the Dow Jones, SP500 and NASDAQ indices representing the the COVID-themed favorites which are lower while reopening issues highlighted by higher oil prices that hold lower percentage of the indices that are higher.
Both, oil prices at $92/BBL for $WTI and 10yr Treasury rates pushing over 1.9% are signs that the reopening theme is leading the COVID-theme.
