Remember that September jobs report when the US supposedly only added 142,000 jobs, which was so bad it sent stocks soaring the most in years?
As it turns out the sum was far greater than the parts, because according to today's BLS breakdown of jobs by state [4], not only did more than half, or 28, states lose jobs in September, but the total number of jobs losses, at 120,000, was about 20% more than the cumulative job gains of 99,000.
How that -21,000 total job loss when summing across all states compares to the alleged gain of 143,000 jobs at the consolidated level reported two weeks ago, we'll leave to the reader to decide, suffice to say that any and all data coming out of the BLS and not making sense, has become the norm.
Also not making any sense, is the state with the most purported job gains, because while firing tens of thousands of oil patch workers, Texas mysteriously - according to the BLS - added 26,600 jobs. The gains occurred in a range of industries, including retail, shipping, education, health care, and hotels and restaurants. Or even more low-paying jobs used a "plug" filler by the BLS to offset the real collapse of America's high-paying manufacturing jobs. New York added the second-most, with 12,000, which is also curious considering all banks but Goldman reported they have continued to layoff tens of thousands of workers.
[5]
But before you go all in 3x levered ETFs with the certainty that this latest batch of recessionary news sends the S&P500 limit up, there was some good news: As AP observes, on the past 12 months [6], only four states have lost jobs. All have significant oil drilling operations or coal mining industries. They have taken a hit as prices for oil and coal have deteriorated.
West Virginia has lost 11,400 jobs in the past year, the most of any state. It also has the nation's highest unemployment rate, at 7.3 percent. North Dakota has shed 7,300 in the past year, yet it still boasts the lowest unemployment rate, at 2.8 percent. Alaska and Wyoming reported small jobs losses in the past 12 months.
One may therefore want to wait before every trace of good news is gone from the US economy, and a depression is assured before front-running the Fed's upcoming monetary paradrop.
Source: BLS [4] [4]
