Today: JOLT! “Y debt”.
U.S. Hiring Hits Highest Level Since 2007 in July The number of hires by U.S. employers in July reached the highest level since 2007 and job openings hovered near their highest level in 13 years, the latest sign of improvement in U.S. labor markets.
Employers hired some 4.9 million workers in July, the highest level since December 2007, the Labor Department said Tuesday. Employers reported 4.7 million openings in July, roughly the same as in June, which was at a 13-year high.
In July, there were around 2.1 unemployed workers for every job opening, up slightly from two in June, but down from three workers per opening one year earlier. There were nearly 6.5 unemployed workers for every opening at the depth of the recession in 2009. Between 2004 and 2006, the ratio of unemployed workers to job openings averaged around 1.9.
Tuesday’s report, known as the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, offers the latest sign of how job markets have firmed up more than five years after the official end of the 2007-09 recession. It tracks the millions of Americans who are laid off from, hired for or quit a job every month.
The report showed that the level of workers who quit their jobs was up slightly in July to a six-year high. The share of workers that have voluntarily quit their jobs has hovered at 1.8% for six consecutive months. The hires rate, at 3.5% in July, matched its highest level in six years.
The number of job openings in July stood around 8% above the level from December 2007, when the last recession was deemed to have officially began. But the number of employees hired was still 3% below that level and the number of employees who voluntarily quit was 11% below the December 2007 mark.
Labour market could be even stronger
(…) the JOLTS suggests employment could be even stronger given the pent-up demand for labour, as evidenced by the almost 4.7 million job openings in June and July, the highest since 2001. As today’s Hot Charts show, the unfilled positions partly reflect the difficulty of firms to attract qualified workers ― according the National Federation of Independent Business, 46% of small businesses, the highest in over 7 years, are finding that there are too few or no qualified applicants for the job openings. While skills shortages are real in some sectors of the economy, perhaps the market isn’t clearing because the price ain’t right. The price here, of course, is wages (or wage growth), which have remained soft despite the improvement in the jobless rate this year. (NBF)
Compared With Earlier Generations, Young Americans Now Far More Saddled With Debt Today’s young Americans are burdened by debt at a far greater rate than prior generations, new research shows.
More than a third of Americans age 24 to 28—or 35%—have debts that exceed their assets, according to research from Dartmouth College assistant professor Jason Houle. That’s roughly double the proportion of their peers in the late 1980s and mid-1970s.
Mr. Houle, in an article published in the academic journal Social Problems, compares Americans between ages 24 and 28 across three generations: those from today, which he calls Generation Y; early baby boomers, who were that age in the mid-1970s; and late baby boomers from the late 1980s.
He finds the share of young Americans with debt—if not the overall dollar amount—has actually fallen from prior generations. Today, 75% of young Americans have debt, compared with 76.5% of late baby boomers at the same age and 78.2% of early baby boomers.
But big shifts in the types of debt held by the groups have led to far different experiences. Younger Americans today are taking on far less mortgage debt and far more student and credit-card debt than the early and late boomers did at the same age, according to Mr. Houle’s research, which relied on Labor Department data.
Only 19.8% of today’s young Americans have home-related debt, down from 29.9% of their peers in the late 1980s and 43.1% of those in the mid-1970s. Conversely, 22.4% of young Americans today have education debt, compared with 5.1% among late baby boomers and none among early boomers. (…)
MBA Mortgage Applications
- MBA Mortgage Applications:
- Composite Index: -7.2% vs. +0.2% last week.
- Purchase Index: -3% vs. -2% last week.
Small Business Ownership In America Is At An All-Time Low
According to the Federal Reserve, the percentage of American families that own a small business is at the lowest level that has ever been recorded. In a report that was just released entitled “Changes in U.S. Family Finances from 2010 to 2013: Evidence from the Survey of Consumer Finances“, the Federal Reserve revealed that small business ownership in America “fell substantially” between 2010 and 2013. (…)
OPEC Says World Will Need Less of Its Oil
In its monthly oil-market report, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said it had revised estimated demand for its crude down by 200,000 barrels a day for 2015 and by the same amount for this year. As a result, markets will need 300,000 barrels a day less of OPEC crude next year, it said.
The group attributed lackluster appetite for its oil to mounting competition from rival producers and sluggish demand in industrialized nations.
The U.S.–which is undergoing a boom in nonconventional fields—is to boost its oil output by 780,000 barrels a day in 2015, OPEC said.
OPEC also downgraded its global oil demand forecast by 20,000 barrels a day for next year. Though the revision is tiny compared with OPEC’s expectation that consumption will increase by 1.19 million barrels a day, the group said it reflected slower consumption growth in industrialized nations.
Despite lower demand for its crude, OPEC said its production rose by 231,000 barrels a day in August as Libyan oil ports and fields reopened.
The group’s August output stood at 30.35 million barrels a day—nearly a million barrels a day higher than average daily demand for its crude oil this year.
France misses EU budget deficit target Defiant Paris will not meet required level of 3% of GDP until 2017
SENTIMENT WATCH
Yet Another Wall Street Bear Folds The latest pessimist to throw in the towel is Gina Martin Adams, senior analyst at Wells Fargo Securities. She initiated a new 12-month S&P 500 price target at 2100 on Tuesday, well ahead of her previous 1850 year-end forecast.
“Tactically, we continue to believe that equity investors should be on guard for a more challenging investment climate in the near term, as monetary policy certainty fades to uncertainty this autumn,” Ms. Adams wrote to clients on Tuesday. “However, economic growth and earnings trends continue to improve, supporting a relatively optimistic outlook for stocks over a longer term.”