Saturday, December 06, 2014

DOL "Jobs" Report: Bah, Humbug

Umhhhnnhhh, yah.  Houston, we have a problem, and it is spelled "jobs"

...Government computer programs take into account seasonal abnormalities — like teaching jobs that stop in the summer and students who find jobs in the summer — so that the numbers don’t jump all over the place.
Nothing wrong there.

The “not seasonally adjusted” data are the raw, unadulterated numbers.

But take a look at November 2013 jobs data and last month’s data.

The raw, unadjusted data from Labor showed that 523,000 new jobs were created in November 2013. After that figure was seasonally adjusted, the growth was reduced to 203,000.

The raw, unadjusted numbers reported Friday showed 497,000 new jobs — or 26,000 less than last year’s 523,000 raw number. Yet, this November’s adjustment resulted in a headline figure of 321,000 — or a whopping 118,000 more than last year.

If the seasonal adjustments stayed consistent Friday’s growth should have been less than last year’s 203,000!

By the way, a lot of those jobs were part-time/low-wage, too.

Another feature of ObozoNomics!!  Keep 'em poor so they'll ask for more from Gummint.

Yah.  That's the ticket!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

The last 2 months' jobs reports have been historically screwed up:

- October's seasoning was almost as "unkind" as November's was "kind" - a 1,051K NSA add translated to a 243K SA add (last year's 944K NSA add translated to a 237K SA add).

- While 683,000 more people were employed in October than in September (seasonally-adjusted), only 4,000 more people were employed in November.

Also, Crudele read the wrong line on the seasonal-adjustment chart - 203K was the November 2012 add (on a 384K NSA add), while 274K was the November 2013 add.