CNBC Loses It Over Huge Jobs Report Showing 500k New Jobs
Category: News & Politics
Via: john-russell • 2 years ago • 2 commentsBy: Tommy Christopher (Mediaite)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
CNBC anchors gushed over a January jobs report that showed nearly half a million jobs created in January, and more than that including revisions, which far exceeded expectations.
On Friday morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its Employment Situation Summary, which has been the subject of suspense because it measured employment at the height of the omicron surge.
In fact, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki tried to set expectations at a press briefing last week by saying that "the month's jobs report may show job losses in large part because workers were out sick from Omicron at the point when it was peaking during the period when — the week where the data was taken."
But as it turned out, those expectations were shattered. From BLS:
Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 467,000 in January, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 4.0 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment growth continued in leisure and hospitality, in professional and business services, in retail trade, and in transportation and warehousing.
The report also showed significant upward revisions for November and December.
CNBC anchor Rick Santelli reacted to the news in real time, excitedly telling viewers "Four hundred and sixty-seven thousand! Four hundred and sixty-seven thousand! Multiples of what we were expecting!"
He ran through some other numbers, including a .1 percent uptick in unemployment, and addressed the concern Psaki raised:
The household survey is where the unemployment rate comes from. They do include people on paid sick leave. So how ironic that that actually moved up a tenth when we're worried about people in the business or establishment survey that are on unpaid leave that aren't counted, but yet that number at 467,000 was quite strong.
And when we come to earnings, up seven-tenths of one percent. Let me look. The high watermark I think has been up seven-tenths in April. It equals that. But that's powerful. And on the 5.7 on the year over year, that's a post-COVID high. That is a powerful number, remember? That was three percent pre-COVID, three percent pre-COVID.
Others on the panel chimed in with enthusiasm as well, including Steve Liesman, who said "Somebody correct me if I'm wrong here, because I have never seen anything like this, but it looks like they revised up December, and I would like two people to go back and play the tape when I did not believe the weakness of the December number. It's 510,000 now. It was 199. Correct. So it's just a remarkable…"
"Two-month revision of 709,000!" Santelli said.
"Just remarkable," Liesman said, although he went on to add that the revisions made him skeptical of the high January number.
Watch above via CNBC.
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Filed Under: CNBCJen PsakiJobs reportRick SantelliSquawk BoxSteve Liesman Previous PostNext Post Previous PostNext Post
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Rick Santelli is the asswipe that got the ball rolling on the Tea Party movement in 2009
for which we are eternally grateful.