In spite of the looming fiscal cliff and the enormous impact of super storm Sandy on jobs, the overall employment outlook is improving. The effects of super storm Sandy have taken a bigger toll than that of government gridlock, but aside from the storm’s affects, new jobs added were in November and some believe things will continue to improve, though economic indicators abound that can easily confuse the issue.
The ADP National Employment Report showed that November saw the addition of 118,000 jobs in the private sector. While this is 5.6% fewer than the expected 125,000, it still shows good growth considering all that is going on in the economy. Commenting on Sandy’s economic impacat, Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics said, “Superstorm Sandy wreaked havoc on the job market in November, slicing an estimated 86,000 jobs from payrolls.” But, he added that after adjusting figures for the estimated impact of Sandy and the effect of seasonal workers who joined the payroll in anticipation of the holidays, new jobs totaled about 150,000 in November.
It can be easy to get confused with all the numbers being thrown around in the media. A Dow Jones Newswires survey of economists showed a wildly large swing in new jobs forecasted by survey respondents with results coming in ranging from 25,000 to 145,000. With a range of 120,000 jobs difference between the highest and lowest projections, it makes a huge difference whose numbers you’re looking at.
Unless you are a researcher, analyst, economist or politician, all these figures can be pretty meaningless. This isn’t some economic forecasting ‘Price is Right’, where the closest one to the actual number wins a prize. The only prize most American’s are after is a job of their own with a steady paycheck. Most American’s are focused on their own job prospects, not how many jobs were added across the country or whose forecast was closest to the actual results.
So, maybe a more helpful focus for everyday working American’s would be to focus on businesses that are expanding, and therefore hiring. For example, Starbucks today announced it will open another 1,500 stores in the U.S. over the next few years, a 50% increase from their earlier estimate of store openings. They will reportedly open an average of two stores per day worldwide, and about half will be U.S. locations, so that’s one new Starbucks opening in the U.S. every day for the next several years.
Starbucks is the biggest of the new expansion announcements, but plenty of other jobs will be popping up next year, including jobs at Ulta Beauty, which plans to open about 125 new stores in 2013 and Smoothie King, which will open 60 new U.S. locations in 2013. These are just a few examples. The point is, statistics and forecasts are fine planning tools for the government and college professors who teach economic theory. But, most Americans are focused on where specific, real jobs are. Look in the right places and what you’ll see is there are plenty of businesses expanding and plenty of new jobs. As the authors of The Power of Focus said, “Hocus pocus, it’s all about focus.”