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Thursday, March 8, 2012

Are employment tax receipts warning of a softening job market?



Employment tax receipts to the Federal Gov't are now negative year-over-year for the first time since December. And weekly unemployment claims have risen for the past three weeks in a row. Tomorrow they're expecting a pretty strong jobs number. Do these data suggest a negative surprise?


4 comments:

  1. Everybody is expecting unemployment to hold steady tomorrow. If this translates into more unemployed, things could get a little bouncy tomorrow.

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  2. It's noisy data, but still very good to know. I presume that the government knows exactly what its tax receipts are without having to estimate or do "adjustments" as with unemployment. In that sense, it should be more reliable data.

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  3. It is noisy, but over time you do see trends and it looks like job growth may have peaked in Jan according to this. Well get some indication tomorrow.

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  4. Good call, Mike, 50,000 fewer jobs than Jan.

    Now if I knew why the pound and aussie fell while the loonie jumped...odd sometimes.

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