Saturday, December 03, 2022

That Jobs Report? Look Deeper

The Bureau of Labor Statistics put out a jobs 'report' which was very optimistic, indeed.

That's because they're playing games with the word "jobs."

...Recall that back in August, September, and October we showed that a stark divergence had opened between the Household and Establishment surveys that comprise the monthly jobs report, and since March the former has been stagnant while the latter has been rising every single month. In addition to that, full-time jobs were plunging while part-time jobs were surging and the number of multiple-jobholders soared....

There's the manipulation.  When Joe Sixpack (or Mary, his wife) add a part-time job, it counts as a job "added."  But that doesn't mean that there are more people working, does it?

...Showing this another way, there were 158.458 million employed workers in March 2022... and 158.470 million in November 2022 an increase of just 12,000 over 8 months, a period in which the number of payrolls (which as a reminder is the number the market follows) reportedly increased by 2.7 million!...

Both can NOT be true simultaneously.

Is it possible that BLS is doing the Political Thing with its happy-happy "establishment" survey?

(That was a rhetorical question, friends.)

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