Manufacturing was up by 18,000 in September as durable goods makers added 17,000 persons to their payrolls. A small, but important event was the revision of the August number from a small negative to the small positive you see here. Why is this important? Because it restores the chain of continuous month-to-month increases in manufacturing employment that began in August of 2017.
It is also important because it allows me to repeat the point I made earlier about how one needs to take account of revisions when doing any analysis of the employment situation. And, while I am here, and have a bit of space, a chance to let you know that when we get to the time when we have to make a call about the change in the phase of the business cycle, we will not do that until we have all of the relevant revisions in hand.
