The Cone of Employment Pain

The following chart shows the annual job growth using the quarterly average of the equally weighted government <a href="http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=qSy">establishment</a> and <a href="http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=qSz">household</a> employment surveys. I'm using the quarterly average to filter the noise out a bit.<br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii_K5HPrSHj01HOpSGI6WU9qoGihsp6sZ02kd4DowaZlaB6Bx9yIl8fqF_bi3ZcYIffWo8MABeVAgTnR6mBw0uFKBRcq2kP61qrUMpyYNfRPrjo4w9POEacYKIRyQffU7BOi9y9tdBhEI/s1600/The+Cone+of+Employment+Pain.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii_K5HPrSHj01HOpSGI6WU9qoGihsp6sZ02kd4DowaZlaB6Bx9yIl8fqF_bi3ZcYIffWo8MABeVAgTnR6mBw0uFKBRcq2kP61qrUMpyYNfRPrjo4w9POEacYKIRyQffU7BOi9y9tdBhEI/s320/The+Cone+of+Employment+Pain.jpg" /></a><br /><span style="font-size: x-small;">Click to enlarge.</span><br /><br />Perhaps an optimist can find something good in that chart, but I certainly can't (at least over the long-term and/or full business cycle anyway).<br /><br /><b>May 18, 2012</b><br /><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com/2012/05/recession-prediction.html">Recession Prediction</a><br /><br /><div style="color: #666666;"><i>They say that predicting the next recession is a fool's game. Well, sign me up. Why not!</i></div><br /><div style="color: red;"><i>I'm going to predict the next recession will hit on or before October 2014.</i></div><br />For what it is worth, the odds of me turning optimistic any time soon are somewhere between slim and none. Just so you know, slim left town. Put another way, I see little reason to change my long-standing prediction.<br /><br />This is not investment advice. Predicting the future is a fool's game. That said, it might be even more foolish to ignore the risks entirely. It's certainly easy and popular these days though. I'll give you that.<br /><br /><b>January 6, 2014</b><br /><a href="http://www.hussmanfunds.com/wmc/wmc140106.htm">Hussman Funds: Confidence Abounds</a><br /><div style="color: #666666;"><br /></div><div style="color: #666666;"><i>Confidence abounds. Last week, Investor’s Intelligence reported a surge in advisory sentiment to the highest bullish percentage since October 19, 2007. The National Association of Active Investment Managers (NAAIM) reported that the 3-week average equity exposure among its members increased to the highest level on record.</i></div><br />Hey, what do you know? No sarcasm this time, unless sheer unadulterated long-term employment chart terror counts. I don't think it does but it is certainly open for debate.<br /><br /><b>See Also:</b><br /><a href="http://news-these-days.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-overleveraged-cone-of-shame.html">The Overleveraged Cone of Shame</a><br /><br /><b>Source Data:</b><br /><a href="http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=qSw">St. Louis Fed: Custom Chart</a>

The Cone of Employment Pain

The following chart shows the annual job growth using the quarterly average of the equally weighted government establishment and household ...

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