chomolungma, RE: Amy, there is one other possibility you should consider:
The numbers are probably wrong.
You really think that Canada is adding more jobs than the U.S.? Not likely. If you've followed the payroll data for as long as I have you realize that they are nothing but a crude guess as to what's taking place. They are subject to steep revisions - sometimes long after the fact.
My personal take is that the productivity numbers are grossly overstated and the jobs numbers understated. If you assume for a moment that the government is missing some of the hours being worked because they are not picking up all the jobs with their surveys, then both numbers will become more reasonable.
Just watch, 3,5 or 7 years from now, we'll recognize that the "jobless recovery" was nothing more than a catchy phrase.
I don't think that's accurate at all.
While many government statistics are indeed highly questionable, the nonfarm payroll number is one of the more accurate.
The revision of the benchmark data for 2003 was announced just a week ago, and the total for 2003 was a downward revision of 122,000. Two things to note: first, the revision was a very small number when compared with the overall job number. Second, note that the revision was downward. Downward revisions are more often accompanied by more downward revisions, which would be completely contrary to what you're maintaining, namely that we're getting set up for a huge upward revision.
When you say that productivity numbers are grossly overstated, that may be true. But that also does not then have a direct effect on the employment numbers. Because the employment data is generally pretty reliable, one of the key places that generates errors in productivity is in the measure of output. |
