by Calculated Risk on 11/04/2005 11:24:00 AM

The BLS released the Emploment Situation Summary this morning.

On Housing: Kash has some interesting comments on construction employment at Angry Bear: Disappointing Job Growth Here are some stats for October: Total jobs added: 56K.

1.8K .... Residential building
20.0K .. Residential specialty trade contractors
5.4K ... Depository credit intermediation (includes mortgage brokers)
3.3K ... Real estate

Total RE related = 30.5K

Previous economic releases have shown that construction spending and new home starts are still rising. This employment report is further confirmation that the building boom is continuing, even though the housing market appears to be slowing.

On overall employment: Bush's first term, with a net loss of 759K private sector jobs (a gain of 119K total jobs), was a disappointment. For Bush's 2nd term, anything less than 6.8 Million net jobs will have to be considered poor. And anything above 10 million net jobs as excellent. Of course, in additional to the number of jobs, the quality of the jobs and real wage increases are also important measures.


Click on graph for larger image.

For the quantity of jobs, this graph provides a measurement tool for job growth during Bush's 2nd term.

The blue line is for 10 million jobs created during Bush's 2nd term; the purple line for 6.8 million jobs.

The insert shows net job creation for the first 9 months of the 2nd term - the last three months have moved job creation towards the lower end of the acceptable range.