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Payrolls Preview: Just How “Big” Will Friday’s “Big Number” Be

Payrolls Preview: Just How "Big" Will Friday’s "Big Number" Be

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Payrolls Preview: Just How "Big" Will Friday's "Big Number" Be Tyler Durden Thu, 08/06/2020 - 23:30

Going into tomorrow's July nonfarms payroll, the picture is mixed: The rate of jobless claims rose in the survey week, against expectations it would fall; continuing claims also rose in the reference period, even after stripping out the effect of bi-weekly reporting in some states (subsequent claims data however showed a notable decline in new initial claims). The ADP's private payrolls number missed expectations badly (it has a poor record of forecasting the official data), and there has recently been a number of upward revisions bringing the series in line with the official data. The signals from the ISM reports are mixed, with the manufacturing survey seeing its employment sub-component rise, though remains under 50.0, while the equivalent within the non-manufacturing PMI fell. Challenger job cuts printed the third largest monthly total in history. Still, the indicators appear at odds with some metrics, like rising auto sales in July; some analysts have reasoned that the jobs market is being pressured by renewed infections, but the recovery is still intact for now.

Goldman summarized it best saying that high frequency data suggest that the labor market recovery may have paused or stalled over the last 4-6 weeks. Workplace activity measures have generally declined in the Sun Belt, and they have moved sideways in other states since late June.

Comparing the July to June survey weeks, traditional and Big Data suggest a wide range of plausible outcomes for tomorrow’s report, but as Goldman cautions, on net they are skewed towards a weaker-than-consensus outcome.

Ironically, this comes even as president Trump hinted on Wednesday to expect a "big number"

So to summarize, the US jobs report will be released at 08:30 EDT and here's what to expect, courtesy of NewsSquawk:

  • Nonfarm Payrolls exp. 1.6mln (range -280k to +4mln, prev. +4.8mln);
  • Unemployment rate exp. 10.5% (range: 9.5-11.5%, prev. 11.1%);
  • U6 unemployment (prev. 18.0%;
  • Participation (prev. 61.5%);
  • Private payrolls exp. 1.485mln (prev. +4.767mln);
  • Manufacturing payrolls exp. 255k (prev. 356k);
  • Government payrolls (prev. +33k);
  • Average earnings m/m exp. -0.5% (prev. -1.2%);
  • Average earnings y/y exp. +4.2% (prev. 5.0%);
  • Average workweek hours exp. 34.4hrs (prev. 34.5hrs).

INITIAL JOBLESS CLAIMS: Weekly initial jobless claims rose to 1.416mln in the July employment survey reference week, against expectations for another 1.3mln print. Pantheon Macroeconomics says tough seasonals were the reason why claims rose after a run of 15 declines; "Unadjusted claims usually drop sharply in mid-July because of the end of the automakers’ annual shutdowns, but most plants didn’t shut down this year; automakers needed to make up for lost production in spring, when Covid-19 forced production to stop," the consultancy writes, "that meant unadjusted claims didn’t rise in early June, but it also meant they didn’t fall as much as usual this week." With that said, Pantheon notes that the underlying trend in claims since mid-June, before these distortions, seems to have been about flat. Continuing claims data for the BLS reference week rose to 17.018mln from 16.151mln; it was first rise since early May. Analysts generally see continuing claims as a better gauge of how nonfarm payrolls might come in, but much of the increase in the July reference week was a result of the four states which require bi-weekly filings of claims (California, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Texas - plus Puerto Rico), resulting in ‘sawtoothing’ data, Pantheon writes. "After stripping these states out it is clear that continuing claims elsewhere rose, by about 225K," Pantheon observes, “That’s the first increase since early May." Using the weekly jobs data as a proxy, the consultancy says that, after making adjustments, says the data are consistent with an increase in July payrolls; but August is at real risk if continuing claims continue to rise.

ADP: Private sector employment increased by 167k in July, according to data from ADP, significantly missing the consensus 1.5mln; however, the prior June data saw a chunky upward revision to 4.31mln from 2.37mln. The data means that private sector employment is still around 13mln (or about 10%) below the pre-pandemic peak seen in February. ADP said the labour market recovery slowed in the month of July, and that slowdown has impacted businesses across all sizes and sectors. Within the details, the slowdown was a result of the Leisure & Hospitality sector, which Capital Economics says makes sense given the renewed restrictions on bars and restaurants in many states, but other states sectors also saw a sharp slowdown. While ADP's data is in sync with some high-frequency metrics which portend a slowdown in economic momentum and employment growth, the link between the ADP data and the official BLS employment situation report is tenuous, Capital Economics notes, especially in recent months; the ADP May and June data were both revised up, matching the more optimistic official data. "The apparent weakness of employment growth is also at odds with the strong 11% m/m rise in auto sales last month," CapEco notes, adding that it is sticking with its forecast for 1mln payrolls to be added to the economy in July; "That would suggest that while the renewed wave of infections is weighing on the economy, the recovery remains intact."

MANUFACTURING SECTOR: The ISM manufacturing report's Employment sub-index rose by 2.2 points in July to 44.3, but remains beneath 50.0. ISM noted it was the twelfth consecutive month of employment contraction, though at slower rate compared to June. It said that only one of the six big industry sectors experienced expansion, as factories were able to achieve significant gains in output with a reduced labour pool. "Long-term labour market growth remains uncertain, but strong new-order levels and an expanding backlog signify potential strength for the rest of the third quarter." Of the 18 manufacturing industries, the five industries to report employment growth in July were: Apparel, Leather & Allied Products; Printing & Related Support Activities; Furniture & Related Products; Plastics & Rubber Products; and Computer & Electronic Products. One manufacturing business in the transport equipment sector said that "overall business remains down almost 70 percent. We are hanging on to as many employees as possible, but we will have to lay off 30 percent or more for at least two to three months until September or October."

SERVICES SECTOR: The ISM non-manufacturing report's Employment sub-index fell 1 point in July to 42.1. It was the fifth consecutive month of contraction. Comments from respondents included: "Current freeze on all open positions" and "lower due to retirements and departures; limited new hiring at this time," ISM said. Five industries reported an increase in employment: Arts, Entertainment & Recreation; Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing & Hunting; Retail Trade; Health Care & Social Assistance; and Utilities. A service company in the public administration sector said "phased opening of businesses continues at a slow pace. Spending is down. Unemployment is up this year, though down compared to last month. Unemployment last year was 2.9 percent. Last month, it was 19.2 percent. This month, it is 16.2 percent."

JOB CUTS: Job cuts announced by US-based employers jumped in July to 262,649, the third-largest monthly total ever behind April’s 671,129 and May’s 397,016, data from Challenger showed; July’s total is 54% higher than the 170,219 job cuts announced in June, and 576% higher than the July 2019 total of 38,845. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the highest monthly total of job cuts was 186,350 in February 2009, Challenger said. "The lapse in extended unemployment benefits for millions of Americans will significantly impact the economy, as we see more employers announce they are cutting jobs permanently," Challenger said, "the downturn is far from over, especially as COVID cases rise around the country." The consultancy added that consumers were buying fewer goods and services, businesses are closing, and bankruptcies are rising." The majority of cuts continue to come from Entertainment/Leisure companies, including bars, restaurants, hotels, and amusement parks; retailers announced the second-highest number of job cuts this year; and services sector job cuts are significantly up y/y. Challenger said hiring announcements almost equaled the number of jobs cut in July, as companies announced 246,507 hiring plans; Warehousing led. Challenger concluded that many job losses are now permanent, and it will be challenging for many workers to find new jobs and feel safe taking jobs that are public-facing.

* * *

So what to expect? As Christophe Barraud writes, looking at high frequency indicators, the signals range from slower improvement to a deterioration. The Census Bureau’s weekly Household Pulse Survey showed that the number of employed Americans declined by about 6.7 million from mid-June through mid-July, including a 4.1 million plunge from the first to the second week of July. In addition, real-time labour estimates produced by academics at Arizona State University and Virginia Commonwealth University showed that the proportion who are employed fell again in July.

Meanwhile, Saint Louis Fed economists, that use real-time data from Homebase to track labour market trend, show “that since the week of June 12, the recovery in employment has slowed down and slightly reverted.” However, as you can see below, by comparing the weeks related to the survey periods, the situation improved a bit from June to July.

The Labor Department data also show that employment conditions started deteriorating in mid-July with initial jobless claims snapping a 15-week streak of declines in the week ending July 18. However, latest figures showed an improvement by month-end. Applications for U.S. unemployment benefits fell by 249,000 to 1.19 million in the week ended Aug. 1 (the lowest since the pandemic started).

Now looking at monthly surveys, results were somehow disappointing. On the one hand, ADP reported Wednesday that private payrolls increased by just 167,000 well below the Bloomberg consensus of 1.2 million and prior figure of 4.314 million in June. In the meantime, the two ISM surveys (Manufacturing and Services) showed that the employment component remained in contraction territory in July, respectively at 44.3 and 42.1 (well below the expansion threshold of 50).

All in all, most of employment indicators imply that the current consensus for NFP is probably too high at +1.5 million (downwardly revised from +2.0 million), yet, the bright spot is likely to come from State and Local Government (Education) jobs amid positive seasonal adjustment. As Goldman notes, there is a seasonal bias in education categories to boost July job growth by roughly 0.5mn to 0.75mn. Some of the janitors and other school staff who normally finish the school year in June and July stopped working this year in April. Reflecting this, education payrolls will likely decline by less than the BLS seasonal factors anticipate, resulting in a sizeable increase in reported job growth inthe sector

The other contrarian point came from Trump statements. President Trump said Tuesday and reiterated Wednesday that there is “a big number coming out Friday on jobs”. While presidents usually receive a preview of the employment report before its official release, it tends to be the prior evening.

To summarize, high frequency and monthly indicators suggest that employment growth was weaker in July with some deterioration seen around mid-July. Due to the survey period, this phenomenom is unlikely to be fully reflected in the report. In addition, seasonal adjustment issues related to Education will boost artificially the headline by several hundred thousand jobs in July. Trump positive comments also imply that the worst scenario (negative print) is very unlikely.

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Looking Back At COVID’s Authoritarian Regimes

After having moved from Canada to the United States, partly to be wealthier and partly to be freer (those two are connected, by the way), I was shocked,…

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After having moved from Canada to the United States, partly to be wealthier and partly to be freer (those two are connected, by the way), I was shocked, in March 2020, when President Trump and most US governors imposed heavy restrictions on people’s freedom. The purpose, said Trump and his COVID-19 advisers, was to “flatten the curve”: shut down people’s mobility for two weeks so that hospitals could catch up with the expected demand from COVID patients. In her book Silent Invasion, Dr. Deborah Birx, the coordinator of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, admitted that she was scrambling during those two weeks to come up with a reason to extend the lockdowns for much longer. As she put it, “I didn’t have the numbers in front of me yet to make the case for extending it longer, but I had two weeks to get them.” In short, she chose the goal and then tried to find the data to justify the goal. This, by the way, was from someone who, along with her task force colleague Dr. Anthony Fauci, kept talking about the importance of the scientific method. By the end of April 2020, the term “flatten the curve” had all but disappeared from public discussion.

Now that we are four years past that awful time, it makes sense to look back and see whether those heavy restrictions on the lives of people of all ages made sense. I’ll save you the suspense. They didn’t. The damage to the economy was huge. Remember that “the economy” is not a term used to describe a big machine; it’s a shorthand for the trillions of interactions among hundreds of millions of people. The lockdowns and the subsequent federal spending ballooned the budget deficit and consequent federal debt. The effect on children’s learning, not just in school but outside of school, was huge. These effects will be with us for a long time. It’s not as if there wasn’t another way to go. The people who came up with the idea of lockdowns did so on the basis of abstract models that had not been tested. They ignored a model of human behavior, which I’ll call Hayekian, that is tested every day.

These are the opening two paragraphs of my latest Defining Ideas article, “Looking Back at COVID’s Authoritarian Regimes,” Defining Ideas, March 14, 2024.

Another excerpt:

That wasn’t the only uncertainty. My daughter Karen lived in San Francisco and made her living teaching Pilates. San Francisco mayor London Breed shut down all the gyms, and so there went my daughter’s business. (The good news was that she quickly got online and shifted many of her clients to virtual Pilates. But that’s another story.) We tried to see her every six weeks or so, whether that meant our driving up to San Fran or her driving down to Monterey. But were we allowed to drive to see her? In that first month and a half, we simply didn’t know.

Read the whole thing, which is longer than usual.

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Problems After COVID-19 Vaccination More Prevalent Among Naturally Immune: Study

Problems After COVID-19 Vaccination More Prevalent Among Naturally Immune: Study

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis…

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Problems After COVID-19 Vaccination More Prevalent Among Naturally Immune: Study

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

People who recovered from COVID-19 and received a COVID-19 shot were more likely to suffer adverse reactions, researchers in Europe are reporting.

A medical worker administers a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to a patient at a vaccination center in Ancenis-Saint-Gereon, France, on Nov. 17, 2021. (Stephane Mahe//Reuters)

Participants in the study were more likely to experience an adverse reaction after vaccination regardless of the type of shot, with one exception, the researchers found.

Across all vaccine brands, people with prior COVID-19 were 2.6 times as likely after dose one to suffer an adverse reaction, according to the new study. Such people are commonly known as having a type of protection known as natural immunity after recovery.

People with previous COVID-19 were also 1.25 times as likely after dose 2 to experience an adverse reaction.

The findings held true across all vaccine types following dose one.

Of the female participants who received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, for instance, 82 percent who had COVID-19 previously experienced an adverse reaction after their first dose, compared to 59 percent of females who did not have prior COVID-19.

The only exception to the trend was among males who received a second AstraZeneca dose. The percentage of males who suffered an adverse reaction was higher, 33 percent to 24 percent, among those without a COVID-19 history.

Participants who had a prior SARS-CoV-2 infection (confirmed with a positive test) experienced at least one adverse reaction more often after the 1st dose compared to participants who did not have prior COVID-19. This pattern was observed in both men and women and across vaccine brands,” Florence van Hunsel, an epidemiologist with the Netherlands Pharmacovigilance Centre Lareb, and her co-authors wrote.

There were only slightly higher odds of the naturally immune suffering an adverse reaction following receipt of a Pfizer or Moderna booster, the researchers also found.

The researchers performed what’s known as a cohort event monitoring study, following 29,387 participants as they received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. The participants live in a European country such as Belgium, France, or Slovakia.

Overall, three-quarters of the participants reported at least one adverse reaction, although some were minor such as injection site pain.

Adverse reactions described as serious were reported by 0.24 percent of people who received a first or second dose and 0.26 percent for people who received a booster. Different examples of serious reactions were not listed in the study.

Participants were only specifically asked to record a range of minor adverse reactions (ADRs). They could provide details of other reactions in free text form.

“The unsolicited events were manually assessed and coded, and the seriousness was classified based on international criteria,” researchers said.

The free text answers were not provided by researchers in the paper.

The authors note, ‘In this manuscript, the focus was not on serious ADRs and adverse events of special interest.’” Yet, in their highlights section they state, “The percentage of serious ADRs in the study is low for 1st and 2nd vaccination and booster.”

Dr. Joel Wallskog, co-chair of the group React19, which advocates for people who were injured by vaccines, told The Epoch Times: “It is intellectually dishonest to set out to study minor adverse events after COVID-19 vaccination then make conclusions about the frequency of serious adverse events. They also fail to provide the free text data.” He added that the paper showed “yet another study that is in my opinion, deficient by design.”

Ms. Hunsel did not respond to a request for comment.

She and other researchers listed limitations in the paper, including how they did not provide data broken down by country.

The paper was published by the journal Vaccine on March 6.

The study was funded by the European Medicines Agency and the Dutch government.

No authors declared conflicts of interest.

Some previous papers have also found that people with prior COVID-19 infection had more adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination, including a 2021 paper from French researchers. A U.S. study identified prior COVID-19 as a predictor of the severity of side effects.

Some other studies have determined COVID-19 vaccines confer little or no benefit to people with a history of infection, including those who had received a primary series.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention still recommends people who recovered from COVID-19 receive a COVID-19 vaccine, although a number of other health authorities have stopped recommending the shot for people who have prior COVID-19.

Another New Study

In another new paper, South Korean researchers outlined how they found people were more likely to report certain adverse reactions after COVID-19 vaccination than after receipt of another vaccine.

The reporting of myocarditis, a form of heart inflammation, or pericarditis, a related condition, was nearly 20 times as high among children as the reporting odds following receipt of all other vaccines, the researchers found.

The reporting odds were also much higher for multisystem inflammatory syndrome or Kawasaki disease among adolescent COVID-19 recipients.

Researchers analyzed reports made to VigiBase, which is run by the World Health Organization.

Based on our results, close monitoring for these rare but serious inflammatory reactions after COVID-19 vaccination among adolescents until definitive causal relationship can be established,” the researchers wrote.

The study was published by the Journal of Korean Medical Science in its March edition.

Limitations include VigiBase receiving reports of problems, with some reports going unconfirmed.

Funding came from the South Korean government. One author reported receiving grants from pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer.

Tyler Durden Fri, 03/15/2024 - 05:00

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‘Excess Mortality Skyrocketed’: Tucker Carlson and Dr. Pierre Kory Unpack ‘Criminal’ COVID Response

‘Excess Mortality Skyrocketed’: Tucker Carlson and Dr. Pierre Kory Unpack ‘Criminal’ COVID Response

As the global pandemic unfolded, government-funded…

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'Excess Mortality Skyrocketed': Tucker Carlson and Dr. Pierre Kory Unpack 'Criminal' COVID Response

As the global pandemic unfolded, government-funded experimental vaccines were hastily developed for a virus which primarily killed the old and fat (and those with other obvious comorbidities), and an aggressive, global campaign to coerce billions into injecting them ensued.

Then there were the lockdowns - with some countries (New Zealand, for example) building internment camps for those who tested positive for Covid-19, and others such as China welding entire apartment buildings shut to trap people inside.

It was an egregious and unnecessary response to a virus that, while highly virulent, was survivable by the vast majority of the general population.

Oh, and the vaccines, which governments are still pushing, didn't work as advertised to the point where health officials changed the definition of "vaccine" multiple times.

Tucker Carlson recently sat down with Dr. Pierre Kory, a critical care specialist and vocal critic of vaccines. The two had a wide-ranging discussion, which included vaccine safety and efficacy, excess mortality, demographic impacts of the virus, big pharma, and the professional price Kory has paid for speaking out.

Keep reading below, or if you have roughly 50 minutes, watch it in its entirety for free on X:

"Do we have any real sense of what the cost, the physical cost to the country and world has been of those vaccines?" Carlson asked, kicking off the interview.

"I do think we have some understanding of the cost. I mean, I think, you know, you're aware of the work of of Ed Dowd, who's put together a team and looked, analytically at a lot of the epidemiologic data," Kory replied. "I mean, time with that vaccination rollout is when all of the numbers started going sideways, the excess mortality started to skyrocket."

When asked "what kind of death toll are we looking at?", Kory responded "...in 2023 alone, in the first nine months, we had what's called an excess mortality of 158,000 Americans," adding "But this is in 2023. I mean, we've  had Omicron now for two years, which is a mild variant. Not that many go to the hospital."

'Safe and Effective'

Tucker also asked Kory why the people who claimed the vaccine were "safe and effective" aren't being held criminally liable for abetting the "killing of all these Americans," to which Kory replied: "It’s my kind of belief, looking back, that [safe and effective] was a predetermined conclusion. There was no data to support that, but it was agreed upon that it would be presented as safe and effective."

Carlson and Kory then discussed the different segments of the population that experienced vaccine side effects, with Kory noting an "explosion in dying in the youngest and healthiest sectors of society," adding "And why did the employed fare far worse than those that weren't? And this particularly white collar, white collar, more than gray collar, more than blue collar."

Kory also said that Big Pharma is 'terrified' of Vitamin D because it "threatens the disease model." As journalist The Vigilant Fox notes on X, "Vitamin D showed about a 60% effectiveness against the incidence of COVID-19 in randomized control trials," and "showed about 40-50% effectiveness in reducing the incidence of COVID-19 in observational studies."

Professional costs

Kory - while risking professional suicide by speaking out, has undoubtedly helped save countless lives by advocating for alternate treatments such as Ivermectin.

Kory shared his own experiences of job loss and censorship, highlighting the challenges of advocating for a more nuanced understanding of vaccine safety in an environment often resistant to dissenting voices.

"I wrote a book called The War on Ivermectin and the the genesis of that book," he said, adding "Not only is my expertise on Ivermectin and my vast clinical experience, but and I tell the story before, but I got an email, during this journey from a guy named William B Grant, who's a professor out in California, and he wrote to me this email just one day, my life was going totally sideways because our protocols focused on Ivermectin. I was using a lot in my practice, as were tens of thousands of doctors around the world, to really good benefits. And I was getting attacked, hit jobs in the media, and he wrote me this email on and he said, Dear Dr. Kory, what they're doing to Ivermectin, they've been doing to vitamin D for decades..."

"And it's got five tactics. And these are the five tactics that all industries employ when science emerges, that's inconvenient to their interests. And so I'm just going to give you an example. Ivermectin science was extremely inconvenient to the interests of the pharmaceutical industrial complex. I mean, it threatened the vaccine campaign. It threatened vaccine hesitancy, which was public enemy number one. We know that, that everything, all the propaganda censorship was literally going after something called vaccine hesitancy."

Money makes the world go 'round

Carlson then hit on perhaps the most devious aspect of the relationship between drug companies and the medical establishment, and how special interests completely taint science to the point where public distrust of institutions has spiked in recent years.

"I think all of it starts at the level the medical journals," said Kory. "Because once you have something established in the medical journals as a, let's say, a proven fact or a generally accepted consensus, consensus comes out of the journals."

"I have dozens of rejection letters from investigators around the world who did good trials on ivermectin, tried to publish it. No thank you, no thank you, no thank you. And then the ones that do get in all purportedly prove that ivermectin didn't work," Kory continued.

"So and then when you look at the ones that actually got in and this is where like probably my biggest estrangement and why I don't recognize science and don't trust it anymore, is the trials that flew to publication in the top journals in the world were so brazenly manipulated and corrupted in the design and conduct in, many of us wrote about it. But they flew to publication, and then every time they were published, you saw these huge PR campaigns in the media. New York Times, Boston Globe, L.A. times, ivermectin doesn't work. Latest high quality, rigorous study says. I'm sitting here in my office watching these lies just ripple throughout the media sphere based on fraudulent studies published in the top journals. And that's that's that has changed. Now that's why I say I'm estranged and I don't know what to trust anymore."

Vaccine Injuries

Carlson asked Kory about his clinical experience with vaccine injuries.

"So how this is how I divide, this is just kind of my perception of vaccine injury is that when I use the term vaccine injury, I'm usually referring to what I call a single organ problem, like pericarditis, myocarditis, stroke, something like that. An autoimmune disease," he replied.

"What I specialize in my practice, is I treat patients with what we call a long Covid long vaxx. It's the same disease, just different triggers, right? One is triggered by Covid, the other one is triggered by the spike protein from the vaccine. Much more common is long vax. The only real differences between the two conditions is that the vaccinated are, on average, sicker and more disabled than the long Covids, with some pretty prominent exceptions to that."

Watch the entire interview above, and you can support Tucker Carlson's endeavors by joining the Tucker Carlson Network here...

Tyler Durden Thu, 03/14/2024 - 16:20

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