Seems there is more fibbing going on, or deception anyway. This is from a newsletter by roger Arnold from this site. don't know if you will find the article at this site, I couldn't, but I didn't look real hard neither.
myhomelender.com
Unemployment FRAUD ?...... Again!
The report on unemployment released this morning shows a top line reduction in the rate of unemployment from 6.0% to 5.7%.
But, December unemployment figures were revised to show 156,000 jobs were lost versus the original estimate of about 101,000.
January unemployment showed a SEASONALLY ADJUSTED increase in employment of 143,000.
There are many problems with these figures but I will not go into in depth because it is not that important.
However, if you simply assume that the numbers gained in January wash the numbers lost in December the jobless rate would be at about the November level of just under 6%.
And that assumes that there was no growth in the labor force. The labor force did grow though, making the drop in unemploynent even odder.
So, how then do we get to a drop in unemployment to 5.7%?
The answer is simple; and is stated in the report itself. The government stopped considering 1.6 million unemployed workers as unemployed.
It's right in the release. Read it yourself.
If this "revision" is taken out the unemployment figure is actually over 6% today.
So, why were these 1.6 million not counted?
The BLS has the option of not counting people they BELIEVE have stopped looking for employment.
So, I will ask you.... Do you BELIEVE that 1.6 million people have stopped looking for employment?
Not sure?
That is just over 1% of the entire work force.
That is 16% of all unemployed workers.
That is almost 20% of workers considered unemployed.
So, that means that 1 out of every 5-6 unemployed workers needing a job have simply stopped looking for work.
Now, is that a good thing or a bad thing?
You decide.
THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION: JANUARY 2003
Payroll employment rose by 143,000 in January, and the unemployment rate decreased to 5.7 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Employment in retail trade and construction increased after seasonal adjustment, but most other major industries were little changed.
Persons Not in the Labor Force
(Household Survey Data) About 1.6 million persons (not seasonally adjusted) were marginally attached to the labor force in January. These were people who wanted and were available for work and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months but were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. The number of discouraged workers-- a subset of the marginally attached who were not currently looking for work specifically because they believed no jobs were available for them--was 449,000 in January. (See table A-13.)
bls.gov |
