Let’s take a belated look at some of the more important datapoints that came out of last Friday’s employment report for April.

To start with, as I’ve mentioned numerous times, frequently service jobs (blue in the graph below) continue increasing all the way through recessions. It is goods producing jobs (red) that turn down in advance. As of now, both are still increasing:

(Click on image to enlarge)

In the fifty years after WW2, manufacturing employment turning down was an excellent indicator of an oncoming recession. But since manufacturing fled first to Mexico and then to China and other points in Asia, it is no longer sufficient; construction employment must also turn down. And while manufacturing jobs did peak in early 2023 (blue) but show signs of stabilizing in the past six months, construction jobs (gold) have continued to increase:

(Click on image to enlarge)

And the most leading sector of construction is residential building. These jobs (red) did decline in April, but it is far too soon to determine if that is just noise or not. The other “last shoe to drop” in the housing sector before a recession starts is new homes for sale (blue). These have shown signs of peaking over the past six months, and may have made their cycle peak in January:

Note that all of the above numbers are “organic,” as they don’t reflect the impact of T—-p’s tariffpalooza. At least, not yet.

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