Labor

After somewhat surprsingly surging to its highest levels since Dec 2014 in March (4 sigma beat), April ADP tumbled to 177k (and March was revised lower from 263k to 255k). This is the lowest growth in jobs since October 2016 - pre-Trump - with service-producing jobs gaining dramaticaly more than goods-producing (165k vs 12k).

The collapse in both ISM's Manufacturing and Services Employment sub-indices suggested notable downside for jobs in April and sure enough the ADP print corrected and was revised lower...

Authored by Charles Hugh-Smith via OfTwoMinds blog,

Everyone wants an abundance of "good paying" jobs, but employers can only afford to pay employees if the work being done is profitable.

What's abundant and what's scarce? The question matters because as economist Michael Spence (among others) has noted, value and profits flow to what's scarce. What's in over-supply has little to no scarcity value and hence little to no profitability.

Just a month after PepsiCo said it would lay off 80-100 people due to the 'unintended consequences' of Philadelphia's new soda-tax, Philly Coke, the local Coca-Cola bottler, has cut 40 jobs amid a 32% plunge in sales.

Since all of this is taking place as previewed in a recent post: "The 'Soda Police' Just Learned A Valuable Lesson About Taxes", we doubt it would come as a surprise to anyone, although we are confident that Philadelphia city workers will be amazed by these unexpected developments.

This could be the first official map produced by the European Union to exclude the UK. But it is also an inaccurate one: the UK is still a member state of the EU.

The implementation of the Greek pension reform of 2016, will lead to the sudden death of incomes for widows, and as KeepTalkingGreece reports, will push a large portion of population further into poverty. Widows’ pensions will be cut down to 50% of the deceased’s pension and new more restrictive age-based criteria will go into effect this month.