Rates & Stocks Rise On August Jobs Report: +67k Private Sector Jobs, 9.6% Unemployment (CHARTS)

Currently the Dow is up 72 and mortgage bonds are down 47 basis points, bringing rates up by about .125% following the better-than-expected Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report showing 67,000 new private sector jobs in August, positive revisions for July, and 763,000 new private sector jobs in 2010. Commentary and charts below.

The BLS report showed that the economy lost 54,000 non-farm jobs in August which reflects the fact that 114,000 government census workers have now completed their work. Actual new private sector jobs were 67,000 for August and 763,000 for 2010. Estimates called for a loss of 120,000 non-farm payrolls, much more than the actual 54,000 loss, and this disparity is why the market reaction is good for stocks and bad for rates. BLS also reported that 14.9 million people are unemployed. This is a 9.6% unemployment rate, up 4.7% since the recession began in December 2007. See charts and more commentary on the U.S.’s 8.9m involuntary part-timer workers below.

Additionally there are now 8.9 million people who would like to work full time but are working part time because their hours have been cut or they can’t find full-time jobs. This forced-into-part-time-work category is up 4m million since January 2008. This is the fine print of the jobs report—the headline job loss and unemployment statistics show that these 8.9 million people are employed and therefore not in the job loss category, but because of their job status these 8.9 million workers aren’t likely to be consuming at normal levels. This poor statistic in the jobs report is mostly unreported, but until there’s movement here, a sustained recovery will be elusive.

CHART 1: PRIVATE SECTOR JOB GAIN/LOSS DEC 2007 TO AUGUST 2010

CHART 2: AUGUST 2010 JOBS BY SECTOR

CHART 3: JOB LEVELS JANUARY 2000 TO AUGUST 2010