Today we got the employment report for November. It would appear that we are at (or near) a stagnation point in employment. Total Nonfarm Payrolls decreased only 11k (a 125k-150k decrease was expected). The unemployment rate (which is more of a psychological thing, as other measures better explain the employment situation) decreased to 10%. Take a minute to celebrate before realizing that this is still double digit unemployment at the height of retail seasonal employment. If this holds through January, it will be significant.
Factory orders came in today with a .6% increase. This growth reinforces numbers we've already seen showing that private demand for nondurable goods is on the rise.
As cynical as I am about the "good news" in employment, the trend of increased demand for nondurables is really promising. For now I'm holding the recession clock at 3 minutes.
Next week we get retail sales numbers for November, if these come back strong I will likely adjust the recession clock again.
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