Voodoo Labor Statistics!
>>> "Every day, in every way, I'm getting better and better. "
>>> LOL!
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>>> Hide the true extent of the losses:
June 5, 2003 -- THERE were 313,000 fewer jobs in the U.S. last year than the government originally believed.
But you won't see that disastrous number in tomorrow's report on the job market for May.
Missing jobs will be inconspicuously removed with an overall adjustment to the labor force - something Washington calls its annual "benchmark" revision.
More likely you'll only see an official drop in the number of jobs of between 20,000 and 50,000.
Bad enough, but nothing that'll send stock prices reeling.
There are already over 500,000 jobs lost in just the last three months of this year. Investors had better hope Wall Street doesn't look too closely at the new job numbers.
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>>> Pad the upside by assuming good news you have no evidence for:
Included in each month's jobs figures are estimates of jobs that the government believes are being created by new companies it can't prove exist.
This "plug" used to be called, of all things, the "bias factor."
But in the last three months, the government has been assuming job growth from these invisible companies.
In February, 63,000 of these mystery jobs were added; 115,000 were added in March and 176,000 in April.
I'm guessing that May will also be an add.
Too bad the unemployed can't get one of these non-existent jobs. That would make the economy a lot better - at least in everyone's imagination. |
