nonfarm payrolls

Economists had forecast job growth in the United States of 60,000 for August, but the Labor Department found nonfarm payrolls flat as the jobless rate held at 9.1%.

Here is a recap of the top news items from this week on Wall Street: 1. One of the most disappointing payroll reports in recent history shocked traders on the Street Friday.

Following a much better-than-expected ADP reading on Thursday (came in at 157,000, compared to an estimate of just 70,000), traders began getting giddy about the Friday report.

Moreover, analysts began raising estimates for nonfarm payrolls following the ADP report. The Labor Department reported a measly 18,000 jobs were added in June, well below the 105,000 economists had been expecting.

Gainers

• Financial Select Sector SPDR (NYSE: XLF) up 1.16% to $16.58. The ETF is getting back to levels that it saw in mid-January as nonfarm payrolls increased more than expected and the U.S. unemployment rate fell 0.1 percentage points to 8.8 percent.
  
  Both numbers indicate sustained economic recovery in the U.S. amid concerns of QE2 diluting the U.S. dollar to being worthless.
  
  More economic viability in the U.S.

The nonfarm payrolls report due Friday morning is expected to show a steady pickup in private sector job creation, with broad participation from the various sectors of the economy.

Here is a recap of the top news items from this week on Wall Street: 1. The monthly jobs report on Friday of this week was, to put it simply, a little odd as wide misses in both the nonfarm and private sector payrolls figures are being blamed on severe winter weather across much of the country.

The rise in nonfarm payrolls came in at 36,000, well below the 146,000 economists were looking for, while the private sector number came in at 50,000, vs. an estimate of 145,000.

The Labor Department also reported that the unemployment rate dropped from 9.4

1. The U.S. economy created fewer jobs than anticipated in December, which signals that the Federal Reserve will continue with plans to buy more assets.

The Labor Department reported Friday that nonfarm payrolls increase 103,000, missing the economist estimate of 150,000.

The unemployment rate did surprisingly dip to 9.4 percent, which was lower than the expected 9.7 percent.

The overall employment for October and November was revised to show 70,000 more jobs added than previously reported. 2.

Here is a recap of the top news items from this week on Wall Street: 1. After a horrible August, the first few trading days of September had investors pouring money back into stocks.

The S&P 500 is up 5 percent so far this month. 2. Friday brought the much-anticipated jobs number, which surprised to the upside.

Nonfarm payrolls in August were down 54,000, as 114,000 temporary census jobs were ended and state and local governments cut 10,000 positions.

Here is a recap of the top news items from this week on Wall Street: 1. Most of this week's trading decisions were dominated by a looming jobs number on Friday.

Ahead of the number, ADP employment and initial claims came in mixed with ADP indicating a better-than-expected figure and the weekly claims reading coming in slightly higher than economists had expected.

Still, most traders weren't expecting the drastic decline in jobs that hit the Street on Friday morning: nonfarm payrolls came in at down 131,000, far worse than the down 65,000 economist estimate.

Here is a recap of the top news items from this week on Wall Street: 1. The highly-anticipated nonfarm payroll number for the month of June was released on Friday of this week, showing that, despite claims from Obama that job growth is "strong", the US is still bleeding jobs.

The Labor Department announced that the nonfarm segment of the jobs market lose 125,000 positions last month, slightly better than the 130,000 decline economists had been looking for.

A silver lining to the report: the unemployment rate came in at 9.5%, a surprise drop from May's reading of 9.7%. 2.

The IPO

Here is a recap of the top news items from this week on Wall Street: 1. A much worse-than-expected nonfarm payrolls number surprised the Street Friday, especially considering that Obama was out just days before touting, more or less, strong economic performance and a return to job growth.

The Labor Department said 431,000 jobs were added during May, more than 100,000 below the 536,000 estimate economists had been looking for.

Making things look even worse, of these 431,000 jobs, an astonishing 411,000 were attributed to temporary job hires by the US Census Bureau.