Other labour market stats also deteriorating

 Most analysts of the US share and bond markets watch the payrolls employment data to decide what's happening to the labour market, and by inference, the economy.

But there are other statistical series, from different sources, which give an interesting insight into what's happening right now.  

First, two surveys which produce similar results (and have done for more than 30 years), the results of "jobs hard to fill" question by the NFIB (National Federation of Independent Businesses), and, the results of the "jobs plentiful" question asked by the Conference Board for its survey of consumer confidence.  Both are declining, an indication that the labour market is loosening, i.e., that employment is decreasing.

The second pair are from official sources:  the "quit rate" and the level of vacancies.  The "quit rate" asks employers how many of their employees resign of their own accord.  Obviously, the lower it is, the worse the job market is.   

All of these indicators point to, at worst, a levelling off of the economic decline from the middle of last year, and possibly, the beginnings of an economic recovery, but also suggest a slowdown since early this year.  

A similar conclusion can be drawn from other indicators, which I haven't listed. "Jobs hard to find" (from the Conference board), which fell until January this year, and has risen sharply since; small business hirings, which rose until January and have fallen  since; and job openings (from the BLS) which peaked in November, and have been trending down since.

One indicator which has risen over the last couple of months is overtime hours in manufacturing.  This would suggest that employers are reluctant to hire more workers because of the uncertainty, and are working existing workers for longer hours.  Interesting.

I'll combine all these indicators into a composite index, and will share it with you shortly.

 In the meanwhile, my conclusion holds.  The US started a recovery in the middle of last year, and that ended early this year.  The next lower turning point is prolly several months away.