Monster Employment Index Hits Post Recession Highs
Considering the weak government jobs report today, its interesting that the Monster Employment Index (MEI) hit a post recession high in August. With the doubts over the validity of the government report, why not look at this index instead combined with ADP and jobless claims.
All of the other jobs reports were mostly encouraging. Jobless claims have been flat around 400K, ADP showed 91K jobs gained, and the household survey had 330K in gains.
Honestly Stone Fox hasn't used the MEI in the past so understanding what the data represents isn't probably 100% accurate. The MEI is reportedly a gauge of US online job demand based on real-time review of millions of employer job opportunities culled from a large representative selection of career Web sites.
So clearly the index could have issues with certain firms moving hiring decisions to the internet or the Web sites used lacking key representation. Logically any company probably wouldn't still be in busines if they just now began hiring via the web.
The MEI grew 8% YoY and 2% MoM. Both solid numbers for what is suppose to be a dismal jobs market. Note how August 2010 saw a drop from July so it even beat a possible seasonal trend for less activity in last month. One year naturally doesn't make a trend.
The index also wasn't impacted by the 46K Verizon union employees that went on strike and were classified as being laid off in August and then rehired in September. What a joke that union members can chose to strike and have all the non-union people pick up the tab via government programs. How nice of us!
As far as Monster Worldwide (MWW) the stock, it had a very strong reaction to the jobs report today. Maybe it was partially due to this strong report that offset the weakness in the overall market. In August, MWW regularly dropped 8-10% on bad news so the meager 1.7% drop was very encouraging for anybody looking for a beaten down stock with a major catalyst like the new Facebook app BeKnown.
Not a very good copy but if click on the previous link you can see the graph in more detail.
Disclosure: No position in MWW but looking to initiate possibly next week. Please review the disclaimer page for more details.
All of the other jobs reports were mostly encouraging. Jobless claims have been flat around 400K, ADP showed 91K jobs gained, and the household survey had 330K in gains.
Honestly Stone Fox hasn't used the MEI in the past so understanding what the data represents isn't probably 100% accurate. The MEI is reportedly a gauge of US online job demand based on real-time review of millions of employer job opportunities culled from a large representative selection of career Web sites.
So clearly the index could have issues with certain firms moving hiring decisions to the internet or the Web sites used lacking key representation. Logically any company probably wouldn't still be in busines if they just now began hiring via the web.
The MEI grew 8% YoY and 2% MoM. Both solid numbers for what is suppose to be a dismal jobs market. Note how August 2010 saw a drop from July so it even beat a possible seasonal trend for less activity in last month. One year naturally doesn't make a trend.
The index also wasn't impacted by the 46K Verizon union employees that went on strike and were classified as being laid off in August and then rehired in September. What a joke that union members can chose to strike and have all the non-union people pick up the tab via government programs. How nice of us!
As far as Monster Worldwide (MWW) the stock, it had a very strong reaction to the jobs report today. Maybe it was partially due to this strong report that offset the weakness in the overall market. In August, MWW regularly dropped 8-10% on bad news so the meager 1.7% drop was very encouraging for anybody looking for a beaten down stock with a major catalyst like the new Facebook app BeKnown.
Not a very good copy but if click on the previous link you can see the graph in more detail.
Disclosure: No position in MWW but looking to initiate possibly next week. Please review the disclaimer page for more details.
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