RHB | US | Signals from the Labor Market…

Economic Research	07 Sept  2015
US
Economic Highlights
Signals from the Labor Market…   The headlines from the August labor market report were arguably mixed. The seemingly lighter print on headline payrolls of 173k (but with upward revisions of 44k in the prior two months) was accompanied by greater slippage in the unemployment rate to 5.1%. Historically, however, the revisions in payrolls--from the first print to the third reading--for the month of August tend to be biased upwards, on average, by roughly 50k to 70k (the upper end is the average for 2004-2014, excluding 2008, while the lower end is for 1995-2014). Still, an evolving concern in the data, at least according to our decomposition exercise (but subject to data revisions), is that employment growth in the cyclically-sensitive private industries, which tends to lead hiring in other sectors over time, seems to be trending lower--with the 3- and 6-month average pace of job growth at less than 30k--hovering around the weakest levels in nearly three years (kindly refer to chart 1). Economist:  Thomas Lam  | +65 6533 0389
To access our recent reports please click on the links below: 20 Aug 2015: Still Dangling… 12 Aug 2015: Reviewing & Revisiting Our Forecast 31 July 2015: Now You See It, Now You Don’t… 30 July 2015: Hike-On, Hike-Off 02 July 2015: Nowcasting and Forecasting 18 June 2015: Yellen and the Dots