As noted earlier, Wall Street was completely clueless ahead of today’s payroll, with most expecting a small positive print but two brave forecasters went so far as to predict that the recent hurricanes would result in a negative print, and sure enough, moments ago the BLS reported that in September, the US economy lost 33,000 hurricane distorted jobs, the first payrolls decline since September 2010.
While the September number was expected to be noise, the historical revisions were more problematic: total nonfarm payroll employment for July was revised down from +189,000 to +138,000,while August was revised up from +156,000 to +169,000. With these revisions, employment gains in July and August combined were 38,000 less than previously reported. After revisions, job gains have averaged91,000 over the past 3 months.
Meanwhile, the BLS also reported that the unemployment rate tumbledfrom 4.4% to 4.2%…
… because some 1.47 million people were not at work due to bad weather.
Developing
