Anthony Chan Lab Quotations

We still have a labor market that's deteriorating, and today's numbers epitomize that. We're going to continue to see deterioration, which will pose serious challenges to consumer confidence and keep the economy soft for another quarter or two.

There's no question in my mind that the labor market is improving.

Even though every investor out there is saying labor costs are picking up, companies have a way to be flexible. In theory, when the economy is doing well, profits do just fine even if labor costs increase.

It really tells us the economy is healthy, and at the same time we don't see that labor markets are overheating at an accelerating pace.

The bottom line is, the labor market is going to continue to show further deterioration, not because it's getting worse, but because of mechanics. As the unemployment rate gets higher, the consumer is going to consider that.

I believe that it is safe to say that this report understates the true strength of current labor market conditions.

The decline in the length of the average work week ... tells us this leading employment indicator does not foreshadow any immediate end to this general pattern of weakness in the labor market.

Although the current growth environment is not impressive, positive growth is still positive growth. On the darker side of things, however, we must admit that the economy still lacks the growth momentum needed to correct many of the labor market ailments.

With the rise in the unemployment rate, it is hard to conclude that the labor market is anywhere near out of the woods.

The movement in labor market conditions is a lot more important than the movement in energy prices. Only when labor market conditions are deteriorating have we historically seen that energy prices have an impact.

The good news is that if so many people are entering the labor force it must mean that they are perceiving an improvement in the economy's prospects, ... The bad news, however, is that if too many people become optimistic about their job prospects, then the unemployment rate will continue to push higher. And the higher unemployment rate does have a damaging impact on consumers. They see it and they think, 'I shouldn't be spending money.' That's one of reason the unemployment rate is so important. It's the one that drives what happens on main street.

The rise in the unemployment rate takes much of the sting away from the robust gain in payrolls from a monetary policy perspective. The big fear ahead of the release of this report was that labor markets were overheating.

These numbers confirm the notion that consumer spending, which has been so resilient, is under some threat. With investor sentiment so weak and the labor market continuing to deteriorate, consumer confidence had only one way to go -- lower.

Policy makers make policy on long-term trends, ... This is temporary. Labor costs will eventually come down.

This shows the labor market in not overheated. And you can see that in, yes, not a lot of people are getting raises.

We can't ignore the trend -- jobless claims have been coming down. We're at least close to turning the corner on the labor market front.

This report is good news because it says the labor market is turning the corner, but it's still not strong enough to declare victory.

This clearly shows that relying on the household survey's employment measure as a barometer of labor market conditions is not only risky, but also an incorrect assumption,

The two months of favorable data allow us to start connecting the dots. It gives us a picture of a rapidly improving labor market. I think we can categorically say we have seen a sea change in labor market environment at this time.

These figures strongly suggest that the labor market recovery train is still not even at the train station as of yet.

While weather played a role in soft apparel sales, the high energy prices impacted overall sales. Net-net, the climate is likely to get better with improvements in the labor market.

The labor market seems to be improving, but still at such slow pace, it's probably too early to start celebrating.

Usually the devil is in the details. With this report, the greatest fear is that details of true labor market conditions will be found over the next couple of months instead of in this report.

More people are entering the labor force, so there is more competition. More competition means there's less leverage for employees.

This is clearly a non-threatening report for investors and policy makers alike. Labor market conditions appear to be tepid enough to justify less rather than more Fed rate hikes while wage pressures did not spoil the party.

If you have productivity growing faster than the economy, how can you expect demand for labor to be all that strong? I'm still hopeful that unemployment won't go much higher than 6.2 percent or 6.3 percent, but where we'll peak is not as important as when we turn around. If we sort of linger at 6.2 percent, that will put some downward pressure on consumer spending.

The small improvement in labor market conditions, despite the continued risks that remain on this front, do suggest that even with all the caveats that Greenspan echoed in his latest testimony ... the Fed might be inclined to move towards a neutral risk bias.