Getting the job numbers in context when trade has halted

USA Today: Capping a disappointing holiday season, Macy's (M) will eliminate more than 4,500 positions as part of a restructuring plan to turn around the department store's slumping sales, the company said Wednesday.

Citing the need for more efficiency and productivity, Macy's plans to make several cuts across its stores, offices and a call center, including eliminating an average of three to four positions at each of approximately 770 Macy's and Bloomingdale's stores. About 3,000 associates will be affected, but Macy's said roughly half are expected to be placed in other positions.

Of the 11,000 unadjusted  reported job gains, how much of that was brick and mortar Christmas hiring?   I doubt more than 4,000 of them were brick and mortar sales jobs.  most of it seems to be professional and business services.  So we have one market event, Macys, likely wiping out most of the retail job gains.

One transaction having that much effect?  That means our seasonal adjuster has huge error bands. Or we can say, the Magic Walrus assumptions are right now way off base. 


Here is another:

Commerce between Europe and North America has literally come to a halt. For the first time in known history, not one cargo ship is in-transit in the North Atlantic between Europe and North America. All of them (hundreds) are either anchored offshore or in-port. NOTHING is moving. This has never happened before. It is a horrific economic sign; proof that commerce is literally stopped. The reason commerce has stopped is simple: People are not buying things. When people do not buy things, retailers do not sell things, so they do not order more goods for stock. When retailers do not order goods, manufacturers don't make anything because there are no orders to fill. When manufacturers do not make goods, they don't order raw materials for manufacturing. When there are no orders for raw materials, commodities sellers do not sell raw materials. When no raw materials are sold, there is no shipping by large cargo ships, (or railroads or tractor trailers) to move anything.

That makes the jobs coefficient completely bogus.