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Strategies & Market Trends : The Epic American Credit and Bond Bubble Laboratory -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Haim R. Branisteanu who wrote (7119)	2/6/2004 11:35:02 AM
From: mishedlo	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 110194

Post on employment cooking the books from pituophis on my board on the FOOL It seems like that anomaly would be slapping more people in the face. They continue to find ways to exclude more and more people from the "labor force"...There is a disclaimer which recently begin appearing on the St. Louis Fed data site: The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced several revisions to the Household Survey on Friday Feb.7th 2003, with the release of the January 2003 Data. They introduced the Census 2000 population controls (which affect data back to 2000 and cause a break in the data in January 2000), a new seasonal adjustment procedure, and new seasonal factors back to January 1998. For further information contact the Current Employment Statistics (CES) homepage at www.bls.gov/ces or by calling 202-691-6555. ------------- I think the easiest way to understand how the total number of jobs can fail to rise substantially and yet the unemployment rate go down is by looking at the participation rate. This DOL would have us believe that 1.1% of the total population of the US that was in the labor force on January 1, 2001 is NOW no longer interested in finding work and thus not counted among the unemployed: Participation Rate research.stlouisfed.org 2001-01-01 67.2 2001-02-01 67.1 2001-03-01 67.1 2001-04-01 66.9 2001-05-01 66.7 2001-06-01 66.7 2001-07-01 66.8 2001-08-01 66.6 2001-09-01 66.8 2001-10-01 66.8 2001-11-01 66.7 2001-12-01 66.7 2002-01-01 66.4 2002-02-01 66.7 2002-03-01 66.6 2002-04-01 66.7 2002-05-01 66.7 2002-06-01 66.6 2002-07-01 66.6 2002-08-01 66.6 2002-09-01 66.8 2002-10-01 66.6 2002-11-01 66.4 2002-12-01 66.4 2003-01-01 66.3 2003-02-01 66.3 2003-03-01 66.2 2003-04-01 66.4 2003-05-01 66.3 2003-06-01 66.5 2003-07-01 66.3 2003-08-01 66.2 2003-09-01 66.1 2003-10-01 66.2 2003-11-01 66.2 2003-12-01 66.0 2004-01-01 66.1 ------------------------ I have heard argument that this fall in the participation rate is due to baby boomers retiring but all ages of workers have been dropping out of the labor force - in fact this article on a historical high lack of participation among youth last summer appears on the DOL website: ----------------- Lowest July labor force participation rate for youth since 1966 The labor force participation rate for youth—the proportion of the population age 16 to 24 working or looking for work—was 67.3 percent in July, down from 69.5 percent a year earlier. This was the lowest July labor force participation rate for youth since 1966. The over-the-year decrease in the youth labor force participation rate may reflect, at least in part, the continuing weakness in the labor market in 2003. However, the participation rate for youth in July has been on the decline for a number of years, perhaps in response to increases in school enrollment during the summer. ======================================== Maybe there are other conclusions that could be drawn, but it looks to me like the DOL is manipulating the data to make the numbers look better. If this were a stock I would short it.