"The private sector created 162,000 jobs in September, a bit better than expected, as the service sector continued to be the economy's main employment driver, according to the latest ADP numbers."
"Small businesses added 81,000 while medium-sized firms added 64,000, with large companies adding just 17,000 for the the month, the report from ADP and Macroeconomic Advisors said.
Services firms were responsible
for 144,000 of the jobs, while manufacturing generated just 4,000 new positions.
The service total was off from the 175,000 increase in August."
"Construction jobs jumped, with the
10,000 gain the biggest since March. Financial services also added 7,000."
To be sure, clearly there are some caveats. Most of the jobs were in the service sector-though this bias towards the service sector is nothing new. The manufacturing numbers aren't great-though just the same we saw earlier this week that the manufacturing sector grew for the first time since May, so this doesn't necessarily mean it's going in the wrong direction-it quite possibly is going in the right direction.
The other point is that the ADP report often diverges from the BLS report that comes out this Friday and looks at total employment-private and public. Question: as the Republicans don't think that public sector jobs are real jobs if we lose them is that a net job gain?
The reality is that we've shed government jobs at a brisk pace the last 2 years. Indeed, Romney and Ryan argue that we need 200,000 jobs a month-actually last month Ryan in attacking Obama on August's job numbers said we need 150,000 jobs a month to achieve a drop in unemployment which is actually not enough. Indeed, we have had close to 150,000 jobs created a month over the last two years.
Most of the lost government jobs have been at the state and local level-the federal government has basically been flat-no new jobs, but no job cuts.
If we had seen the public sector job growth we had seen during Bush's term, we would be created the 200,000 jobs needed per month to bring down unemployment. What we've had is the worst kind of policy: procyclical. What you actually want is for spending to the states to increase. But Romney is running on the idea that we don't need any more teachers as he claims that class sizes aren't important.
The most numerous government workers are teachers and the police. Romney sees no need to add either.
Still, we are now in the age of Q-infinity and it seems quite likely that the economy will be better the next 4 years than the past 4. That the market has risen throughout this election season is a good harbinger for both the President's re-election and the future macroeconomic picture. If anything Romney was hoping to knock Obama out before Americans could-as Clinton put it so well-"feel the recovery."
Then he would be able to benefit from an economy that will be better anyway thanks in part to the President's term. However, the Romney referendum campaign has long been as the British would put it "in tatters." This is how Prime Minister Harold Macmillan back in the 1960s described the European plans of the British
Read Greg Sargent for more on how the Romney referendum has failed
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