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By Knight Kiplinger
The Kiplinger Washington Editors
July 2, 2009
 

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Factory Employment to Lag Services in Job Pickup

Overall job growth will increase from the January pace as productivity gains slow.
 
By Jerome Idaszak, Associate Editor, The Kiplinger Letter
 

February 4, 2005

The pace of job growth is likely to accelerate in coming months from the net rise of 146,000 posted for January, as slowing productivity gains push companies to hire more workers. But manufacturing will continue to lag as a few major industries—notably autos and chemicals—shed staff. We see monthly job growth averaging about 200,000 this year, for an annual total of around 2.4 million.

The January job tally, though below analysts' estimates of 200,000, is nevertheless in line with expectations that companies were poised to take a breather in early winter after ramping up activity in the fall.

This week, purchasing managers in both the manufacturing and service sectors of the economy pointed to a slight slowing of orders, but this isn't likely to be the start of a longer-term trend.

Meanwhile, the rate of gains in productivity—that is, the amount of a worker's output per hour worked—fell to 0.8% in the fourth quarter from 1.8% in the third quarter, continuing a gradual slowdown. That means businesses will have to hire more workers to satisfy demand as the economy picks up steam toward the spring. For the year as a whole, we expect gross domestic product to expand by about 3.5%, down from 4.4% last year.

A loss of 10,000 jobs in the auto sector in January reflects troubles faced by U.S. automakers as foreign-made models continue to gain market share. However, expanded U.S.-based production by foreign manufacturers is likely to temper the sector's job losses in the future. The chemical industry shed 5000 jobs, which may be the result of its firms shifting production to overseas locations where natural gas and other key feedstocks are cheaper.

January's jobless rate of 5.2% is the lowest since September 2001 and is down from 5.4% in December. We think that the rate will be about 5% by the end of this year.

Researcher-Reporter: Gerry Moore

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