The Real Story on January's Jobs Figures, 112,000 Is Really 36,000

[Yavin4]

This is from the NY Post, hardly a left wing rag. It totally explains how that 112,000 jobs figure is really only 36,000 jobs.

Frodo, this is for you:

http://www.nypost.com/business/17568.htm

Scroll half way down the page:

Excerpt:
The problem with the 112,000 is that most of those new jobs don't really exist.

I'll let the Labor Department explain itself in this passage from page 3 from its Friday release: "Retail trade employment increased by 76,000 over the month, after seasonal adjustments. The industry had lost a total of 67,000 jobs in November and December.

"Weak holiday hiring in general merchandise, sporting goods and miscellaneous stores meant that there were fewer workers to lay off in January, resulting in seasonally adjusted employment gains for the month."

By now my readers should have a PHD (pretty high disdain) for Capitol Hill math. This one, though, is a cake taker.

I'll translate: Included in the 112,000 new jobs in January were 76,000 jobs that supposedly exist because people who weren't hired in December couldn't be fired in January.

[papau]

1. Seasonally adjusted ... I wonder how we will show the projected 300k new

jobs each month up to the election?

It may take some fancy "seasonal adjustment" work!

:-)

[BR_Parkway]

5. Don't forget the National Gaurd figures

are completely screwing up all the labor numbers. Assuming that the company that a guardsmen(women) worked for actually needed to have them in that position, when they were called to active duty, someone else got put into that slot. So, one more person comes off the "unemployment" figures, one more person goes into the "new hires" column so it all gets skewed. Not surprising that they'd like to authorize another 30K soldiers, if they get to count them in multiples, it wouldn't take much of their "fuzzy" math to turn 30K into 90K

[sweetheart]

2. Are there any real sources anymore?

In a recent argument on another site, i was put to by freep types to explain where i got the statistic of 6% more americans in poverty since bush took office, and 33% of american children living in poverty... and it seems that the right wing have their own statistics agencies that do a better job at painting over little things like that.

Is there any statistical bedrock, or are we drowning in a sea of numbers.

[papau]

8. The gov still has solid numbers at DOL.GOV and BEA.DOC.GOV and IRS.GOV

they are just cherry picked - given the media - and media acts as a reprint service for the GOP,

The numbers you see at DU are all from government sites!

It is just that the media has not been handed these numbers by the GOP, so they do not run with them. The Rove handout is presumed credibile - why? - GOP bias? - - while Dem/DU numbers taken from Government sources do not see the like of day in the US media, except as page A19 on Saturday - long after the Bush folks have established their first impression via the partial truth lie that they had the media print.

[nostamj]

3. i HOPE Lou Dobbs covers this!

geez, this is the fuzziest math yet!

thanks for the post! if only the REAL unemployment numbers were known...

so i wrote this rant

[West Coast Democrat]

4. And how did the unemployment rate drop by 1% in December

when only 1,000 new jobs were created? What kind of fuzzy math enables it to continue dropping while so many people continue to be laid off, and few new jobs are being created?

[Yavin4]

6. The UE Rate Drops Because People Stop Looking

They go back to school, live off of a significant other, or they take part-time and temp jobs when their benefits run out.

Let's say John Doe is on his last UE check. John Doe is probably going to take the shelf stacker job at Home Depot even though it'll probably last only four weeks. However, to the labor department, John Doe is employed.

[central scrutinizer]

7. they didn't extend jobless benefits

So when people run out of benefits, they fall off the back of the bus and are no longer counted as "unemployed". They don't have a job, but they can no longer draw unemployment so they disappear. Voila, unemployment drops.

[Gulf Coast J]

9. 0.1%

Not 1%. If you read the press release from the BLS, they same unemployment remained virtually unchanged.