Behind the NFP Headlines

Gold and silver took a hit Friday night and shares rallied…. Why?  Well all rejoice the awesome non farm payrolls and household survey employment numbers out of the US.  A better than expected 215,000 new jobs were created and the unemployment rate rose to 5% on the back of a better participation rate (up 0.1% to a still awful 63%).  Headline reading pundits saw this as a turnaround to the dovish news all the week before.  So… let’s look behind the headlines again…(courtesy of David Stockman):

• 65,000 of those new jobs were courtesy of the mythical ‘birth death’ adjustment that estimates those leaving the workforce as starting a new business.  Separate data shows more small businesses closing than starting (for the last 4 years) so go figure…
• The number of multiple job holders jumped by 127,000 as people need more of the predominately new low paying jobs to make ends meet. 
• The core sector of employed men aged 35-54 dropped by 76,000.
• Manufacturing only accounted for 29,000 jobs as the US continues to see a decline in productive industries (check out the charts below):