Standard and Poor’s (S&P) Purchasing Managers’ Indices (PMIs) for the American economy for the first half of December went further into contraction for both the industrial/manufacturing and services sectors. Those indices were at 46.2 and 44.4 respectively, where anything under 50 means that more than half of the businesses surveyed were reducing operations or anticipated reducing their operations in the immediate future. The recession estimate of S&P chief economist Chris Williamson is worse than the one from three weeks ago by one-half of one percent of GDP: “Business conditions are worsening as 2022 draws to a close, with a steep fall in the PMI indicative of GDP contracting in the fourth quarter at an annualized rate of around 1.5%. Jobs growth has meanwhile slowed to a crawl as firms across both manufacturing and services take a much more cautious approach to hiring amid the slump in customer demand.”
Other “major” economists’ forecasts for fourth-quarter GDP growth are still positive, but by less than 1%.
On Williamson’s last point, it has already been reported that the Labor Department’s monthly “jobs reports” from April through November claimed an apparent total jobs growth of 2.7 million while the Labor Department’s surveys of households during the same seven-month period showed no increase in employment at all. The Labor Department has now (perhaps with the election safely in the past), recalculated one of its main “adjustments” and acknowledged that 1.1 million of those claimed new jobs didn’t exist. Stay tuned for more (of less).
