Steven Wieting Employment Quotations

Some of the conditions that have ripened the growth outlook at the start of 2006 are unlikely to last into spring. Abnormally warm weather boosted construction activity in December. ... Judging by a 46,000 gain in construction employment in January, the winter 2006 will go down as an unusually early and strong period for building activity.

While we don't take monthly changes in employment too seriously, today's data were slightly stronger than expected on hiring, but slightly weaker on hours and utilization, thus providing a 'growth positive' outlook.

We already were expecting a 5,000-job decline in manufacturing employment in May.

If demand stays strong and productivity growth slows considerably, this could be a year that could be seen as heading towards traditional overheating of the labor market, with big employment gains,