Econ Reports: ADP Employment Unimpressive; Announced Layoffs a Mixed Bag; Consumer Confidence in the Toilet

First, ADP's private-sector employment release:

According to today's ADP National Employment Report, employment in the nonfarm private business sector rose 91,000 from July to August on a seasonally adjusted basis. Employment in the private, service-providing sector rose 80,000 in August, down from increases that averaged 115,000 per month over the prior two months. Employment in the private goods-producing sector rose 11,000 in August, while manufacturing employment slipped by 4,000.

The company's initial figure of 114,000 jobs created last month was also revised down to 109,000.

According to Reuters, expectations were for 100,000 job additions. Business Insider's daily email predicted 110,000.

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Announced Layoffs — Meanwhile, Challenger, Gray & Christmas issued its monthly announced layoffs report, with the following good-news, bad-news intro:

United States-based employers announced plans to trim 51,114 workers from the payrolls in August, a 23- percent decline from July, when the number of job cuts hit a 16-month high of 66,414, according to the report released Wednesday by global outplacement consultancy Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.

The August decline follows three consecutive increases in the monthly job-cut total that saw job cuts rise from 36,490 in April to the July peak. The August total, however, was up 47 percent from a year ago, when employers announced just 34,768 job cuts during the month.

I would guess that August would typically be a month with relatively few layoff announcements. If so, the year-over-year comparison is the more relevant of the two items bolded above.

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Yesterday, in a report under consideration for the “unexpectedly bad” Hall of Fame, the Conference Board told us the following about consumer confidence, more properly described as “consumer despair”:

The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index®, which had improved slightly in July, plummeted in August. The Index now stands at 44.5 (1985=100), down from 59.2 in July. The Present Situation Index decreased to 33.3 from 35.7. The Expectations Index decreased to 51.9 from 74.9 last month.

… Says Lynn Franco, Director of The Conference Board Consumer Research Center: “Consumer confidence deteriorated sharply in August, as consumers grew significantly more pessimistic about the short-term outlook. The index is now at its lowest level in more than two years (April 2009, 40.8). A contributing factor may have been the debt ceiling discussions since the decline in confidence was well underway before the S&P downgrade. Consumers' assessment of current conditions, on the other hand, posted only a modest decline as employment conditions continue to suppress confidence.”

Business Insider's email expected a drop to 52.5. The Associated Press carried a prediction of 53.3. Reuters must have been really embarrassed about the variance from expectations, only noting that “Economists had expected a much-less-pronounced decline.”

I would suggest that the saturation coverage of the debt-ceiling discussions and the mediocre results achieved broke through the media fog and got the attention of many of the usually disengaged, educating them as to how bad things really are and will continue to be for at least 17 more months because of you-know-who. If that's true, it's a good thing, despite its negative effect on the survey result.