US Jobs Dropped By 33,000 In September, Likely Due To Storms (npr.org)

An anonymous reader shares an NPR report: The U.S. economy shed 33,000 jobs in September, according to the latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, while unemployment fell to 4.2 percent. The September payrolls drop broke a nearly 7-year streak of continuous job gains. But economists caution that the drop is likely representing the short-term consequences of bad weather, not a long-term shift in the job market. Before this report, the economy had added an average of about 175,000 jobs per month; the unemployment rate has been at 4.3 or 4.4 percent since April. Job growth in September was expected to be lower than usual because of the effects of several devastating hurricanes. Economists did not generally predict an actual decline, but a not-so-stellar report was widely anticipated.

Comments

...and in a month or two...

[Penguinisto]

Given that the hurricane-stricken areas are in semi-tropical places where construction can (and probably does) happen year-round, I'm betting that there will be a massive boom in construction jobs coming in the next month or two, and lasting maybe 6 months or more. Someone's gotta rebuild all that stuff, after all...

Re:...and in a month or two...

[Solandri]

The money doesn't leave the economy unless somebody sinks it into gold, art, or real estate.

Money spent on gold, art, and real estate stays in the economy. The guy you paid for the gold, art, or real estate now has a bunch of money he can spend on things.

What matters is the overall productivity gain from what the money was spent on. That's why Enron's scam of selling the same equipment back and forth multiple times between two of its divisions didn't actually generate money. It inflated the accounting books, but because there was no productivity gain per transaction, it did nothing to help the company. For an economic transaction to be beneficial to the individual/company and the overall economy, it has to have a net productivity gain. The store which sells a hammer has to sell it for more than they paid for it (and to stock it). The carpenter who buys the hammer has to be able to use it to increase his carpentry business sales by more than he paid for the hammer.

Gold is pretty bad in that respect because it doesn't do anything (unless you're using it to plate electronics for corrosion resistance). And in fact buying it for decoration can be a net negative on the economy since it drives up the price for gold used for productive purposes (like anti-corrosion plating). Art can be good if exhibiting it generates additional economic activity (people wanting to make/buy more art, people traveling to view it). Real estate can be good if you build something on it that generates more economic activity, or preserve it to allow something to continue to exist which generates or protects economic activity (e.g. land for anti-flood dikes).

I Blame

[dcw3]

Plug in your political affiliation and start pointing fingers now...

Democrat
Trump
Climate Change
Misogyny
Russia

Republican
Obama/Clinton
Abortion
Snowflakes
BLM

Or maybe, instead of picking sides, and listening to the talking heads, we could just for a moment stop and realize that "the other side" isn't all evil/crazy, and that they just see things through a different lens that we should try to understand instead of listening to our individual echo chambers.

Re:I Blame

[JoshuaZ]

No, the other side isn't evil or crazy, but that doesn't mean that climate change isn't real, that Donald Trump isn't a sexist asshole who literally bragged about sexually assaulting women, and that he very likely collaborated with Russia in if not illegal, certainly questionable ways. And of course, there are Republicans out there who are willing to stand up to him, but that doesn't make Trump less bad.

Every Presidential election since I was old enough to care except this one, I've sent time arguing with people that it wouldn't be terrible if the candidate from the major other party they were opposed to won. I didn't do that where Trump was concerned, because he really is that bad. It is true that people are often much too willing to assume that the politicians they dislike are somehow absolutely awful, but it doesn't mean that that doesn't sometime genuinely occur.

Re:Storms?

[will_die]

Yet the actual scientists who study hurricanes and forecasted last year that this years hurricanes would be worse than recent norms say it the warming is caused by El Nino not global warming.
The people who are saying it was caused by global warming are the people who are paid to raise the fear level about global warming.