4-week Diesel down 3.9% YoY = Recession

[Yo_Mama]

It's probable that we are in a recession right now.

There are odd factors; the weather disruptions should have had an impact, and the Japanese supply disruptions very definitely are a factor. But trend were declining before this.
http://ir.eia.gov/wpsr/wpsrsummary.pdf

The last recession began (according to NBER dating) December 2007. At that point we were still way up YoY, but by the end of March 2008 diesel had dropped to -4% YoY, and total fuel usage was down a couple of percentage points. Right now we are currently doing worse than that.

This really isn't looking good, and everyone was fooled by April establishment survey numbers. It looks like the household survey was right and we lost over 150,000 jobs instead of gaining over 200,000 jobs.

[pinqy]

1. You have to compare apples to apples

The establishment survey and the household survey measure different things. If you look at just government and non-household private industries from the household survey (roughly matching the establishment survey) then there was a gain in employment. And recognize that the establishment survey counts multiple jobholders for every job held, while the household survey measures people.

[Yo_Mama]

2. What I'm getting at is the strong link between jobs and oil

Admittedly I am doing it with my usual unintelligible mumbling:


That oil curve only goes through February, we're into the downshift now. Jobs will follow.

[pinqy]

3. What measurement is the chart using for oil?

And for non-ag employees, for that matter? I can't tell what units the Y axis represents...certainly not number of jobs.

[Yo_Mama]

4. Links

Here is oil - monthly supply
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_cons_psup_dc_nus_mbbl_m.htm

The employment series used is LNS12032187 (Non-ag Wage and Salary Workers SA).
It's normed to the oil level - I think just by multiplying the series by 4.5.
http://www.bls.gov/webapps/legacy/cpsatab8.htm