source: Federal Reserve of St. Louis (FRED)
The headline employment number beat expectations for November with 203,000 jobs added. The U-3 unemployment rate dropped from 7.3% to 7.0%. However, the median duration of unemployment ticked up again to 17.0 weeks. The report was generally strong, but some of the indicators like median duration went the wrong way. The two month moving average moved up again and we moved further away from the upper bound trend line for 2013.
The median needs to drop below the upper trend line again. Outside of recessions, the median duration is typically below 8.0 weeks. A rising median duration is a seriously bad sign for the economy, indicating a recession 6 out of the last 6 times.
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