Storm hits hiring in November but service sector grows

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Private-sector hiring took a hit in November due to the impact of storm Sandy on the northeastern United States but the country's huge services sector continued to expand.

The ADP National Employment Report, which is closely watched as it comes two days ahead of the government's monthly national employment report, showed that the private sector added 118,000 jobs during the month, below expectations for a gain of 125,000.

The report largely underpinned economists' forecast for a weak reading in the Labor Department payrolls report on Friday. Economists expect the economy added 93,000 jobs in November, down from 171,000 the month before, according to a Reuters poll.

"It's close to what the market was expecting. If Friday's employment report from the U.S. Labor Department comes in similar to this, that would be a good outcome," said Terry Sheehan, economic analyst at Stone and McCarthy Research Associates in Princeton, New Jersey.

Wednesday's raft of data, which also included better-than-expected factory orders and productivity, presented a mixed picture of the U.S. economy. That was in part a reflection of cross-currents from Sandy, as well as difficult budget negotiations in Washington aimed at averting the "fiscal cliff," a series of automatic spending cuts and tax hikes next year.

A report on the U.S. services sector showed a similar slowing in hiring during the month. But forward-looking indicators pointed to faster growth as a rise in new orders and business activity helped offset a slowdown in employment and prices.

The Institute for Supply Management said its services index rose to 54.7 last month from 54.2 the month before. The reading topped economists' forecasts for growth to 53.5, according to a Reuters survey. In the report, 50 marks the divide between growth and contraction.

"The much larger service side of the U.S. economy remains relatively healthy," said Joseph Trevisani, chief market strategist at Worldwide Markets in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey.

"It has so far avoided the contraction in manufacturing but worse is probably coming in the first quarter of next year as the economy continues to slow."

In a twist to the story of Sandy's economic impact, some companies reported that relief efforts actually boosted business, if only temporarily, and this may have helped the headline number beat expectations.

Respondents in the ISM survey did, however, suggest that decisions such as hiring are being put on hold due to the uncertainty that the fiscal cliff is generating.

A separate report on Monday showed that the manufacturing sector contracted after two months of growth.

The noisy readings on the economy will make it harder for the Federal Reserve to form a clear picture when it meets next week. The U.S. central bank is widely tipped to announce a fresh round of Treasury bond purchases, avoiding monetary policy tightening to maintain support for the lackluster economy.

U.S. stocks were little changed after the data but rose in volatile trade by midday. The S&P 500 index, a broad measure of U.S. stocks, traded up 0.5 percent.

Also on Wednesday, a report showed new orders received by U.S. factories unexpectedly rose 0.8 percent in October as demand for motor vehicles and a range of other goods offset a slump in defense and civilian aircraft orders.

The Commerce Department also upwardly revised October's figures on non-defense capital goods orders excluding aircraft in a hopeful sign that the slowdown in business investment in recent months might soon draw to a close.

Economists at Barclays said the strong reading, driven by orders and shipments of capital goods, equipment used to make other things, means the economy will grow faster than expected in the fourth quarter. They raised their gross domestic product growth outlook for the quarter to 2.2 percent from 2 percent.

The report chimed with another release showing U.S. nonfarm productivity increased at a much faster clip than initially thought in the third quarter as businesses held the line on hiring even as output surged, with unit labor costs falling at their fastest pace in almost a year.

With the effects of Sandy out of the way in the months ahead, hiring is expected to return to its previous trend even if more slowly than most would like to see with the employment rate still hovering near 8 percent.

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Analytics, who helps compile the ADP report, said underlying jobs growth was closer to 150,000 in November after discounting the impact of the storm as well as seasonal jobs brought forward at the start of the holiday season.

"Abstracting from the storm, the job market turned in a good performance during the month," he said. "Superstorm Sandy wreaked havoc on the job market in November, slicing an estimated 86,000 jobs from payrolls."

Zandi said he was seeing little indication that budget negotiations in Washington, aimed at averting the so-called fiscal cliff, were having a significant impact on hiring.

"I don't sense that businesses have pulled back on their hiring or increased their layoffs as a result of the angst surrounding the fiscal issues," said Zandi.

The impasse over the fiscal cliff, which could slam the economy to the tune of $600 billion next year, has been blamed for fueling uncertainty and making corporate managers delay business decisions.

(Additional reporting by Ellen Freilich; Editing by Clive McKeef, Chizu Nomiyama and James Dalgleish)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/storm-hits-hiring-november-sector-expands-151850917--business.html

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An Education in Classlessness | Economics reference cell ... - Davis ...

Economics : Of all the people in the city of New York who should be reluctant to charge someone else with elitism, the city's richest man has to be on the top of the list. But irony has never been one of the mayor's strong suits, so there he was?the other day?with a verbal assault on Bill Perkins for, of all things, having the temerity of being a vocal critic of charters, despite having gone to the "tony" Collegiate School for his own high school education.

Here's the NY Post's (natch) account: "The Post's Dave Seifman forward some pretty choice quotes from Mayor Bloomberg going off on state Sen. Bill Perkins, a major opponent of charter schools, on his weekly WOR radio show this morning. Bloomberg jabs at the pol for attending "elite private schools" and says he's been "violently" against choice for parents."

Now's not the right time to interject a tired pot and kettle analogy, but it does take a certain amount of chutzpah to attack Perkins when the mayor probably hadn't set foot inside a public school-his kids went elsewhere obviously-until he was elected mayor. And the same goes for Chancellor Klein who, along with Bloomberg, brought absolutely zero knowledge of public education to the job?when he was elevated to his supreme commander post. And this from a man who spends all of his weekends in Bermuda!

But what's even more egregious in our view is the mayor's failure to see with any clarity what?the charter phenomenon says about his own educational effort-a point that we have already made before. Here's the Post again: "Bill Perkins is a guy who went to elite private schools, and he represents a district where most people can?t afford elite private schools, and charter schools are their opportunity to get their kids a great education," said Bloomberg. "I think the numbers are something - there?s 10,000 places this year - more places for charter schools, and there?s something like 50 or 60,000 applicants for the 10,000 places."

Now, after eight years of so-called reform-along with reams of flack touting miraculous advance-we have stampedes in poor neighborhoods to flee the public school system as fast as possible. The Post's Seifman continues to spotlight the mayor's views in a follow up story: "Bloomberg argued that charter schools promote competition, which is one reason public schools in the city are improving. "Competition is great for everybody, and it's one of those things we want to encourage, and Perkins has been violently against it, while the educators and the public and the parents want more of [it]," the mayor said."

If the Harlem clamor for choice is any indication, this kind of a competition can best be described in sports language as a blowout-and as an indictment of the failure of the overall?Bloomberg effort. Diane Ravitch's hearing testimony sheds light on the true nature of this far from healthy competition: "Some charters are as idealistic as the original vision, but many others now see themselves as competition for public schools. They want to take over public school space and replace public schools. They revel in stories about beating public schools, not helping them."

But as far as Bloomberg's observation that the charter competition is in some way aiding public school improvement, where's the evidence of that? Which brings us back to the point that we made last week: "So there is obviously a perception of failure at the grass roots level. Whether this is a reality or not-and studies indicate that the charter exploits are exaggerated in the aggregate-doesn't matter. And the clamoring for, "choice," is an indictment of the current system that the media did so much to tout when it was all about mayoral control."

So what's missing from all of this trumped up outrage, is a concomitant genuine outrage at the three card monte game that the Bloombergistas have played-with Rupert and Morticia acting as the audience shills-with a gullible public. It is time to bring in the forensic accountants, and Perkins and his state senate crew should hold follow up hearings on testing fraud, unmerited teacher and administrator bonuses, and a profligate expansion of an educational bureaucracy that has failed to deliver real success even with an 80% increase in its allocation.

But that might not even be necessary if what they think is going to happen next spring actually does-new school tests that expose the naked emperor's false positives. As the NY Post reports: "Criticized for having steadily dumbed down standardized tests -- and trumpeted phantom gains -- the state Education Department says students in grades 3 to 8 taking required math and English exams starting tomorrow won't pass as easily this year. "Students are going to have to know more and do more to demonstrate proficiency on the exams," said John King, senior deputy state education commissioner."

And it will be more difficult to teach to the test: "A rising number of pupils have passed in recent years as cut scores dipped so low that some kids could randomly guess enough right answers to squeak by, experts found. State Board of Regents Chancellor Merryl Tisch and Education Commissioner David Steiner "are committed to ending the annual debate about whether our state tests have become harder or easier," King told The Post. "Doing that will require us to ensure that our tests become both less predictable and more comprehensive in terms of the number of items they test."

But, once the test fraud is exposed will it finally become clear that, as far as NYC's master of the house is concerned, "there's not much there?" Here's the Post's observation: "The sliding standards weren't revealed when Mayor Bloomberg touted dramatic spikes in state scores as a triumph of his stewardship. But the lid was blown off when federal officials found reading and math scores for New York students had remained flat on a national benchmark exam since 2007, while their scores on the state tests skyrocketed over the same period."

Education Secretary Arne Duncan, cited in Sol Stern's upcoming City Journal article, makes this telling point: ?We have to stop lying to children,? education secretary Arne Duncan said recently at a meeting of the National Governors Association (NGA).?We have to look them in the eye and tell them the truth at every stage of their educational trajectory.?

If Mike Bloomberg really wants to advance the interests of NYC school kids, he can begin by laying off the glass house?ad hominen attacks on Bill Perkins; and he can follow Duncan's advice by starting to?tell the truth-to those with an actual stake in public education-about how all of his extra funding and top down control of the educational bureaucracy has yielded a truly lackluster result. Don't expect this anytime soon, because mea culpas are conspicuously absent in the Bloomberg personality profile.

Source: http://economics-reference-cell.blogspot.com/2012/11/an-education-in-classlessness.html

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Flex Night International?PM Hinds to open Health & Fitness Expo ...

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Honorable Prime Minister Mr. Samuel Hinds will be doing the courtesies of declaring open the Flex Night Health and Fitness Expo set for this Saturday, December 8th at the National Cultural Centre (NCC). PM Hinds commenced the week by leading the AIDS Walk last Sunday.

Fitness Expo will feature special exercise sessions for the public as this one where Curtis McKenzie is seen taking his clients through the paces.

The Health and Fitness Expo is an activity of Flex Night Incorporated that brings together 24 Exhibitors who will be showcasing a range of products and services all aimed at promoting the healthy fitness lifestyle theme.
Those products include fitness and exercise equipment, both imported and locally manufactured; sports and fitness attire; bodybuilding and nutrition supplements; fitness and exercise classes; massages and food therapies and outdoor recreation pursuits.
The Health and Fitness Expo has attracted the participation of several of the main distributors of fitness and exercise equipment and apparel in Guyana as well as some of the principal fitness instructors and exercise gurus.
The event targets persons of all ages and fitness levels and there are special exercise sessions organized by Annabelle Vieira of Fusion Fitness, Curtis McKenzie of Curtis Workout and Noshavyah King of Genesis Fitness Express.
The Expo will be opened at 13:00hrs on the upper patio of the NCC after which the Media will have the opportunity of a tour of the Expo booths with the official party.
All the booths will be opened for the remainder of the evening which leads into the on stage action when athletes from Suriname, Brazil and Guyana clash in the Flex Night International Bodybuilding and Fitness show.
The Surinamese have already thrown down the gauntlet through its Bodybuilding and Weightlifting its President to the Guyanese that they are coming to win, not only in words but a sizable and what is anticipated to be a vociferous support group of fans will touch down on these shores, tomorrow along with the guest artist, reigning European Fitness champion, Holland based Gisa ter Haar, who was also at the Mr. Suriname Show Saturday last in the Dutch speaking nation. Gisa?s mother is Surinamese.

Source: http://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2012/12/06/flex-night-international-pm-hinds-to-open-health-fitness-expo/

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