Good news? Jobs created in July.

[The Lone Liberal]

WASHINGTON - The nation's unemployment rate declined to 6.2 percent in July as nearly half a million discouraged Americans stopped looking for a job. Payrolls were cut for the sixth month in a row, suggesting that businesses remain cautious and want to keep work forces leans despite budding signs of an economic revival.
---------------------------------------

The economy lost 44,000 jobs in July. While that's an improvement from the 72,000 shed in June, economists were hoping that positions would actually be added. They were forecasting payrolls to go up by around 10,000.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030801/ap_on_bi_go_ec_fi/economy&cid=668&ncid=716

If new jobs go up by 10,000 that only leaves Bush approximately 1.39 million jobs to go before the end of 2004. That was what he promised with the tax cut. That is around 81,000 jobs a month to be created. That is if we do not factor in the negative job creation that is occurring at the same time. Wow that is a bunch of burger flippers.

[qb]

1. Who the hell knows?

Every blip in every indicator has had economists predicting "massive recovery" for the last two years.

[ProfessorGAC]

9. Yes, And Blips Do Not An Indicator Make

Economists tend to really be poor analysts. They learn the techniques, but get buried in the abstaction of theories that were developed in times when the velocity of money and the scale of the macroeconomy were an order of magnitude (at least) below what they are now.

These theories are anachronsitic, 2 dimensional, and unsupportable based upon the data. And even some of my students who've come to my modeling classes that have only taken 1 stats course before know that inferences should NEVER be drawn on a single point of data.

Yet, the "name" economists do it every damn month.
The Professor

[phillybri]

2. 470,000 left work force due to frustration.....

Good job, President Hoover!!!

[trof]

3. This was in my morning e-mail:

"U.S. JOBLESS RATE DECLINES DESPITE JOB LOSSES"
http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/newsfinder/pulseone.asp?guid={00E1F6F7-A1E9-4229-8D37-2616A87D0EBD}&siteid=mktw&dist=bnb

hunh?
:eyes:
My head hurts.

[Liberal Veteran]

4. That's like saying....

Good News! After losing 8 pints of blood, the bleeding has slowed down some.

[leanings]

22. lol n/t

[Kolesar]

5. the unemployment rate in Youngstown hit 40% in the 1980s

The university did a real survey and collected data that the BLS does not use and that is what they found. (Rather like the great depression) There was also a substantial number of underemployed people.

[joeybee12]

6. NY Times, WashingtonPost, CNN...

...are all basically spinning negatively. Saying the workforce contracted, so the percentage is lower. This really contradicts all the cheerleading going on about the economy for the past two days with other economic indicators. We are really screwed.

[punpirate]

7. Well, let's just review the story....

The government _predicted_ 10,000 new jobs in July. Those did not materialize. The economy actually shed 44,000 jobs in July. Those lost jobs are added to the 2.6 million jobs erased since January 2001.

Even if there were 10,000 jobs created, the net loss is still 44,000 jobs. So, Herr Bush and Co. continue to lose jobs despite the 1.4 million new jobs expected due to the tax cut.

However the government slices it, they can boast all they want of creating new jobs, but if they lose more than gained, it's still a net job loss, not an increase of jobs.

Cheers.

[CWebster]

8. The new jobs created

will be shipped overseas.

The economic numbers improved due to an increase for the defense industry.

Draw your own conclusions.

[59millionmorons]

11. Thank you

44.1% of the growing economy was from defense spending, very little by consumer spending. These numbers like the unemployment numbers are a ruse.

[punpirate]

12. No, the new jobs created...

... will not be shipped overseas. The jobs shipped overseas will be existing, higher wage-paying jobs here. That's where the corporate cost-savings come into play. New jobs created here, if any, will be lower-paying service jobs, the majority of which can't be exported because they will be direct contact jobs.

The economic numbers mentioned, which came out yesterday, as I believe I've already commented upon, are due to a war bubble--to keep those numbers up, and to keep the stock market humming a pleasant tune, means war and war spending will have to continue, the deficits will continue, and the money supply will continue to shrink.

Cheers.

[qanda]

13. So why does the number go down...

Instead of going up? Is it because of the way the numbers are calculated? For instance, are those no longer receiving unemployment compensation considered in the unemployment rate?

[punpirate]

16. If their benefits end...

... and they don't come back each week to the unemployment office to register for work, they are no longer considered a part of the work force. It is assumed they no longer need or want work and have withdrawn from the workforce, therefore the total workforce becomes smaller--they are no longer considered either unemployed or employed. When those 570,000 people are removed from both the total jobs column and the unemployed column, the percentage of unemployed goes down.

Here's a mathematical example. Say there are 100 people in the workforce and 10 are unemployed. Unemployment rate is 10%, right? Suddenly, benefits end for 5 of those people, and after thirty weeks of looking, they don't come back to the employment office the next week. They've disappeared. The government says they aren't part of the workforce any more, because they don't know where they went. So, the workforce is now 95 people, and 5 of them are unemployed. Now the unemployment rate is 5.3%.

It's arbitrary and hardly a reflection of reality, but if the government doesn't know where those people are, what their status is and what their intentions are, they can't include them in their statistics.

Cheers.

[KAZ]

21. That's not correct. UE and workforce #s are determined by....

... survey, not UE benefits. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.tn.htm

Edit: spelling.
Edit: Never mind. I see your clarification below. I never learn. :)

[supernova]

10. The problem is

people like me aren't counted in the unemployment rate. I am looking for work, just not through the ESC.

My time for benefits has passed, so for them I'm "out of sight, out of mind."

[punpirate]

15. That's quite correct...

... as the report mentioned, 570,000 people stopped looking for work. That means they weren't receiving unemployment benefits, and weren't regularly checking in with their local employment office. Therefore, you, and the rest of those 570,000 are not part of the workforce and therefore are not calculated into the rate.

But, worse, what you may not realize is that the comprehensive employment figures are significantly based on phone surveys to just 1300 households a month, approximately. If they call and ask you if you worked at all that month (work might include cleaning out your brother-in-law's garage for $30 because you'd been out of work so long he felt sorry for you), then you were employed for that month. (!)

If the absolute truth were known about actual unemployment in this country (all people capable of working but who could not find full-time work, or were working subsistence part-time work after losing full-time work), the percentage would be staggering. No politician could get elected if the actual figures were known.

Cheers.

[HFishbine]

18. I thought

the unemployment rate was calculated by household surveys.

[punpirate]

20. As I mentioned, part of it is calculated from phone surveys...

... of households. The other numbers, including people leaving the workforce and those making new or ongoing claims for unemployment, because they are known figures provided by the states, are factored into the percentage of unemployed. As I understand it, the phone surveys provide an ongoing baseline, and the other numbers adjust it, based on estimates of the total work force.

The absurdity of it is apparent, though, isn't it? The workforce is about 118 million, but a 1300-call survey provides the baseline.

Cheers.

[greatauntoftriplets]

14. Half a million discouraged Americans stopped looking for a job....

That is 500,000 people, similar to many medium-sized cities. That is one shitload of people.

Government economists seem not to know their rear ends from holes in the ground.

[punpirate]

17. In a little fairness to the number crunchers...

... see my posts above. They're simply the messengers, so there's no point in killing them. For the most part, the people collecting, collating and publishing the statistics aren't making policy. It's the policy-makers who should get hammered here. And we all know who the policy-makers are, don't we? *smile*

Cheers.

[papau]

19. Rate Declines as Competition for Jobs Recedes = AP Headline

And there is no rightwing bias at AP?

500,000 folks give up looking for jobs as 44,000 jobs disappear from the payrolls, and this is the good news that "Competition for Jobs Recedes".

The AP headline writer is sick.