Unemployment

After a quiet Asian session, where not even the latest Chinese CPI miss was enough to push the SHCOMP to new multi-year highs, all eyes were on Europe where a few hours ago the European Commission announced it had received not one but two new proposals from Greece with the Greek government adding that it considers proposals submitted last week as remain basis for political negotiations. However, barely had Europe received the Greek addenda when it nein'ed all over them, with BBG citing an international official directly involved in talks saying that the "Greek government's revised proposal to unlock bailout funds is vague rehash of earlier plans, not considered credible."

There is something morbidly ironic when one of the world's richest men, in this case South African Johann Rupert, who has made billions (his net worth is roughly $7.5 billion) peddling Cartier jewelry and Chloe fashion as founder and chairman of luxury conglomerate Richemont, whose 20 brands also include Vacheron Constantin and Montblanc, said tension between the rich and poor is set to escalate, that the "envy, hatred and the social warfare" may crush society, and that "we are destroying the middle classes at this stage and it will affect us."

"I'm making a good salary and I'm doing all these things that I'm supposed to be doing. But you're just not able to save enough to get to that number. Housing is so inflated."

"...at the end of the day, the "new normal" shouldn't be one where our current best is still worse than our prior worst."

While there were key macroeconomic data out of Asia earlier in the session, with Japan revising its Q1 GDP up from 2.4% to 3.9% (due to an upward revision to capex) making some wonder if it simply didn't snow in Japan this winter, as well as Chinese trade data that was once again disappointing with the third consecutive drop in exports coupled with an 18.1% collapse in imports hinting that nothing is going well in China's economy (which once again sent stocks soaring this time up another 2.2% on certainty another PBOC rate cut is imminent, pushing the PBOC to a fresh 7-year high of 5,132), it was actually a leaked Obama comment on the strong USD that moved markets.

In the latest jobs report we find the following stunner: since the start of the Second Great Depression, the US has added 2.3 million "foreign-born" workers, offset by just 727K "native-born". This means that the "recovery" has almost entirely benefited foreign-born workers, to the tune fo 3 to 1 relative to native-born Americans!

It’s the breakdown of jobs by age that really screams out. It is a known fact that people in the 45 to 54 age bracket are in their prime earning and spending years. In the last year the number of employed 45 to 54 year olds has DECLINED by 67,000. It DECLINED in May by 51,000. It has DECLINED by 187,000 since February. It is a known fact that people over 55 dramatically reduce their spending as they approach and enter their retirement years. The Boomers have added 824,000 jobs in the last year, or 28% of all the new jobs added.

Although we solved the "mystery" of America's missing wage growth some three months ago, the central planner/ Ivory Tower crowd is still confused. WSJ has taken the time to lay out nine prevailing theories from some of the country’s ‘finest’ economic minds...

Two weeks ago, Citigroup presented what it thinks is the biggest nightmare for the Fed: it said that the FOMC’s "biggest worry is not lift off and its market and economic implications, but what happens if the economic recovery dies of old age without the Fed having done anything to tighten." And, according to Citi's FX strategists, "if this were to occur, the USD would probably fall faster than it rose from July-March." A precursor to loss of faith in the Dollar's reserve currency status perhaps. Today, Citi's Steven Englander lays out what is the Fed's second biggest nightmare: a rebound which is so fast, the Fed's entire carefully planned renormalization schedule collapses.

The biggest malady affecting the US economy today, is still in place: as the chart below shows, the labor force participation rate rose just barely from 62.8% to 62.9%, a range it has been for the past year. Indicatively, the last time the US labor force was here, was in mid-1978.

Despite the rise in the unemployment rate - which by now become nothing more than a joke - the jobs report (at the headline level) was too good for the bulls demding moar for longer. The kneejerk reaction was a selloff in bonds, commodities, and stocks as the dollar surged amid rate hike delay hopes. As time passed stocks bounced back a little but bond yields and the dollar continue to press notably higher and crude has given up all its OPEC gains.

Contrary to expectations of a modest 226K increase in nonfarm payrolls, according to the BLS in May the US added a whopping 280K jobs, with the April print revised from 223K to 221K, but March revised higher from 85K to 119K. This was the highest monthly increase in payrolls since December of 2014.  The unemployment rate rose from 5.4% to 5.5% on the number, as the number of employed Americans according to the Household Survey also rose by an almost equal 272K.

The most important not yet double seasonally-adjusted economic datapoint is upon us: in 90 minutes the BLS will report the May payrolls number which consensus expects to rise by 225K, (range of 140K to 305K), barely unchanged from April's 223K. The meaningless unemployment rate is expected to remain unchanged at 5.4%, even as the number of people not in the labor force likely will rise to a new record high. The most important variable, however, will be the hourly earnings with consensus expecting a 0.2% increase for all workers (the non-supervisory workers category is a different story entirely), up from the 0.1% increase in April.

After yesterday's unprecedented volatility fireworks across all markets and continents, today so far has been a modest disappointment, with no crashes and subsequent surges in China, where the Politburo's only achievement was keeping the bubble dream alive by pushing the Shanghai Composite over 5,000 for the first time since January 2008, closing the index 1.5% higher on the day - a very modest gain by China's recent blow-off top standards.  Europe, too, has been relatively tame with the 10 Year Bund starting off on the wrong foot, the yield rising back above 0.91% before once again dipping to the upper 0.8% range, tracking the move in the EURUSD tick for tick, which also is a tractor beam for the US 10 Year. On the equity, front, things are just as muted, with futures at the Low of Day as of this moment, despite yesterday's last minute manic buying spree, the S&P set to open below 2100 as a result.

Perhaps the most disturbing, and factual (unlike the IMF's forecast of Greek 2022 debt/GDP), finding is that unemployment in the OECD region has fallen only 1 per cent since its 2010 peak. In other words, by 2016, the group warned, 40 million people will be out of work, 7.5 million more than immediately before the crisis. 40 million angry people, with little hope of professional realization and lots of free time. Is it surprising why in recent months not a day passes without some mass violence event breaking out somewhere in the world.