Thumbs Up: Job Openings Show Biggest Growth In A Year

From ERE Net by John Zappe Feb 1, 2010, 6:33 pm ET

Coming
up Friday is the monthly employment report from the U.S. Bureau of
Labor Statistics. And if early indications are correct, it could
confirm the hope raised by last week's robust GDP numbers that not only
is the economy recovering, but it is picking up steam.

As a barometer of the political economy, the employment report is
closely watched, which will be especially true this week, coming on the
heels of a State of the Union speech in which every other paragraph
seemed to mention the word jobs. Friday's release will offer the best
indication yet of how much improvement there is in the jobs picture.

While many economists expect the report to show flat job growth -
itself an improvement over the last two years of almost monthly job
losses - there is a growing feeling of hope it might show the economy
added jobs.

The Conference Board's monthly report on job openings
released today showed the number jumped 382,000 over December.
According to the report, there were 4.024 million jobs advertised
online in January. That's the most since November 2008 and is the third
month in a row that openings grew.

Contrast that with what happened in January 2009. That month the
Help Wanted OnLine Data Series report showed openings dropped by
473,000 over December 2008, which itself had 509,000 fewer listings
than the prior month.

It's a positive sign that companies may be willing to finally fill some of the positions that have been frozen.

Meanwhile, the manufacturing index from the Institute for Supply Management
rose in January for the sixth consecutive month. The 58.4 is the
highest the index has been in five years, strong support for the GDP
report from last week.

That's good news, as is the ISM's manufacturing jobs index, which came in at 53.3 in January, the highest in nearly four years.

Coming up Wednesday is ADP's monthly jobs report, compiled from its payroll data. The ADP National Employment Report
is a harbinger of the BLS release that comes two days later, though it
often differs significantly from the numbers the government issues.
(The ADP report counts only private payroll data, while the BLS
includes public payrolls as well.)

By then the financial news services will be reporting their surveys of economist predictions of what the BLS report will show. The Wall Street Journal today
took a first shot at it, reporting Morgan Stanley expects the report to
show the economy added 75,000 jobs in January. The Journal also said the unemployment rate would edge up slightly to 10.1 percent.