A little sunlight on the horizon

The markets are all over the place in regards to investments and no one can seem to agree on if the current track being pursued by the Feds will return the desired effect for the economy.  What is true is we need more production to boost our GDP, more jobs created or sustained and the real estate market to firm up.  Can’t promise any of these items but there is some light at the end of the day, US job loss is slowing. -Sean

Pace of Monthly Job Losses Slows

By KELLY EVANS

The pace of job losses slowed last month, a report released Wednesday showed, but the small improvement suggests a return to job growth could still be many months away.

Service-sector employment declined by 146,000 in August, while goods-producing jobs including construction and manufacturing fell by 152,000, according to Automatic Data Processing Inc., a payroll firm.

The combined loss of 298,000 jobs was an improvement from July’s revised drop of 360,000 and was less than half the pace of declines seen earlier this year.

Associated PressChris Wasmer works on an engine for a 2010 Ford Escape at an assembly plant in Claycomo, Mo., last week

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Payrolls Even More Key for Markets This Time

1:21With the Fed worried that unemployment could derail the recovery and with ADP data showing a nasty decline, Friday’s payrolls will prove even more important for market sentiment this time around.

Meanwhile, revised figures showed that worker productivity was stronger than initially reported during the spring, growing at a 6.6% annual rate, though it resulted from companies cutting workers or their hours.

“If you’re a worker you don’t really want to see productivity growing for the reasons it did in the second quarter,” said Joshua Shapiro, chief U.S. economist at MFR Inc., a New York-based consulting firm.

He and others say productivity will likely slow during the second half of the year as companies moderate the steepness of their cutbacks amid gradual improvement in business conditions. Already, employers are shedding fewer workers.

Still, many were hoping to see more of an improvement in August now that key sectors of the economy, such as manufacturing and the housing market, are showing some encouraging signs.

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Indeed, a separate Commerce Department report showed that U.S. factory orders in July rose 1.3% from the prior month, the biggest gain in a year, to $355.5 billion, following a 0.9% increase in June.

The figures “continue to suggest that net job losses are slowing but that we are still some way from the point where the labor market will begin to create jobs,” said John Ryding of New York-based RDQ Economics.

The ADP report suggested “some downside risk” to the government’s official August employment report, due Friday, but the ADP figure has been worse than the government’s figure in six of the past eight months, according to economists at Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

That is in part because ADP only tallies private-sector jobs. Government hiring has added about 2,000 jobs per month over the past year.

As a result, many economists left their expectations for Friday’s report unchanged at a loss of 225,000 to 250,000 jobs for August.