Tuesday, October 5, 2010

ASA Staffing Index continues very strong


The strength of this index, which measures temporary and contract employment, is quite impressive. Compared to the same week a year ago, demand for temp workers is up 25%. This reflects some underlying vigor in the economy that is hard to ignore or explain away. I'm beginning to suspect that the jobs number will be surprisingly strong this Friday. And given today's 2% equity rally, the market may be suspecting the same thing.

HT: Mark Perry

2 comments:

brodero said...

I have been tracking the daily withholding and employment tax receipts from the Treasury Department and there are alot
of moving parts and i am certainly
not an expert but we had some
incredibly high tax receipts numbers for October 1 and 2 compared to previous years. There might be a reason for this but it is interesting from a possible employment view.

brodero said...

Since you probably just had your first cup of coffee...this from the
Challenger report...

"In other data released, hiring intentions surged to 123,076 in September from 14,075 in August on a reported 114,000 hiring plans for the retail sector ahead of the holiday season. Hiring plans were only 25,047 in September 2009, with 1,575 retail hires planned that month. "