Lies, Statistics and US Unemployment
From the Bureau of Labor Stats press release Friday.
stats.bls.gov
First, last months job loss was changed from -89K to -126K, a
hefty 42% MISS from the bean counters at the BLS.
Next, we have to "season" the numbers, like a nice juicy steak.
"Total employment rose by 851,000 to 134.3 million in
February, after seasonal adjustment"
Throw this out.
Next they look at part-timers:
"In February, the number of persons working part time despite
their preference for full-time work increased by 255,000 to 4.2
million. The number of persons working part time for economic
reasons had been at about that level from September through
December. (See table A-4.)"
Reminds me of Paris. 35-hour work weeks, etc.
Next they count people who are unemployed as not unemployed
(Orwell would have a field day here):
"In February, the number of persons not in the labor force who
reported that they currently want a job decreased by 449,000, to
4.4 million (seasonally adjusted); this group accounted for 6.2
percent of all persons not in the labor force. These individuals
were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched
for work in the 4-week period preceding the survey. Most had
not searched for over a year. (See table A-1.)"
Maybe they are all on vacation?
Next we move to the disgruntled and discouraged categories
(Here that? It was Orwell turning over in his grave):
"About 1.4 million persons (not seasonally adjusted) were
marginally attached to the labor force in February. These
individuals reported that they wanted and were available for
work and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months.
They were not counted as unemployed, however, because they
had not actively searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the
survey.
The number of discouraged workers was 371,000 in February,
up by 82,000 from a year earlier. Discouraged workers, a subset
of the marginally attached, were not currently looking for work
specifically because they believed no
jobs were available for them. (See table A-10.)"
1.4 million added? Kind of squashes that little 66K number.
The number of "discouraged" increased by a factor of 4.5 in the
last year.
Note how they only seasonal adjust certain places? All to make
things look as good as possible.
The BLS "stats" are really "samplings" and as they say on page
2 are subject to wide ranges:
stats.bls.gov
"For example, the confidence interval for the monthly change in
total employment from the household survey is on the order of
plus or minus 292,000. Suppose the estimate of total employment
increases by 100,000 from one month to the next. The
90-percent confidence interval on the monthly change would
range from -192,000 to 392,000 (100,000 +/- 292,000).
These figures do not mean that the sample results are off by
these magnitudes, but rather that there is about a 90-percent
chance that the "true" over-the-month change lies within this
interval. Since this range includes values of less than zero, we
could not say with confidence that employment had, in fact,
increased."
That +66K could actually be -226K or anywhere in between.
Read the last sentence again:
"Since this range includes values of less than zero, we could not
say with confidence that employment had, in fact, increased"
This is provided as an example of why the Credit Bubble has a
LONG way to go before it is defalted and that anything coming
out of the US should be viewed as being SPIN. |
