Economy

Last edited Wed Dec 17, 2025, 05:50 PM - Edit history (2)

Now for the Bureau of Labor Statistics big jobs report that came out December 16 --
Minus 105,000 in October and +64,000 in November for a net drop of jobs over these 2 months of 41,000.
In the last 3 months, jobs increases averaged just +22k jobs/month, seasonally adjusted
In the last 7 months, jobs increases averaged just +17k jobs/month, seasonally adjusted
And the unemployment rate went from 4.4% in September to 4.6% in November (the highest in 3 years).

Note that the "raw numbers", i.e. before seasonal adjustment, were +416k/month average over the last 3 months, and +204k/month average over the last 7 months.

More details: https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143583215#post19

The LBN thread: https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143583215 .

Please disregard all the comments about "Christmas hires" and "seasonal hires" - those have been adjusted for.

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There's another jobs report that came out -- the ADP report on PRIVATE sector payrolls:
16,250 private jobs/week for 4 weeks ending 11/29/25 (so roughly +65,000 private sector jobs in the month of November)
LBN thread: https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143583228
Again, ignore the comment about seasonal hiring. The ADP reports seasonally adjusted numbers
Also realize that The ADP numbers cover only about 20% of the nation's private workforce. They have to estimate the other 80%.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1014&pid=3506135

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The retail sales report that came out December 16: Sept: +0.1% and October: +0.0%. Those are nominal dollar increases. After adjusting for inflation, which was 0.3% month-over-month in September, and an unknown amount in October, those are declines of real spending of 0.2% and 0.3%, assuming that October also comes in at 0.3% month-over-month inflation. Yes, they are seasonally adjusted.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/retail-sales-flat-in-october-as-uncertainty-tempers-consumer-spending/ar-AA1SsP9b