Awful Employment Report

As soon as finished opining about the CBO report where I hinted that their unemployment outlook looked a little rosy I saw this report in MarketWatch on the ADP release today:
ADP data show 693,000 private-sector jobs lost in December

This is ugly stuff. Normally employers hold off firing employees until after the holidays, so the January and February figures usually show a jump which is then ‘seasonally adjusted’ down. Those months also include any firings of holiday seasonal workers. So to have what appears to be the worst fourth quarter since 1945 already in the bag is a terrible omen for the upcoming year. That CBO report is obsolete already!

The ADP numbers are not a government statistic, but they are a good predictor of the nonfarm payroll data the government will be releasing later this week.

Be prepared for grim news.