Jobs, Jobs Everywhere and Not a Job to Find

[kalian]

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6282.htm

06/06/04 "ICH" -- If you’ve listened to Conservative Radio or Fox News lately then you already know the good news. Jobs are aplenty! In fact, according to Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and President Bush, we are in the midst of a huge boom! According to the spin, more than 650,000 American workers found employment in the last two months. Mighty spectacular, wouldn’t you say?

The problem with the numbers, however, is what’s wrong with nearly every pronouncement from this administration. It’s clothed in a semblance of truth, but it disguises the real facts. The truth is we have more educated, specialized, articulate, unemployed workers than ever in our history. It doesn’t consider The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that 80,000 to 90,000 unemployed become ineligible for unemployment benefits every week and therefore, are no longer counted among the unemployed.

We’re not told that we have lost over three-million industrial jobs since George Bush took office, nor are we told that since our “recovery” we have lost over a million manufacturing jobs or three-million private sector jobs. The fact that the job “boom” was in low salaried temporary and retail positions were left out of the explanations for the “good news”, or that none of the jobs were in high-paying trades and services.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor, “employment rose substantially in several service-providing industries, construction continued to add jobs, and there was a noteworthy job gain in durable goods manufacturing.” The truth is there are more than 11-million unemployed citizens looking for work.

According to Dr. Martin Regalia, U.S. Chamber vice president for economic policy and chief economist, "These job figures are the last piece of the economic puzzle. Our expansion is strong, well balanced, and sustainable."

...more...
A very somber editorial.

[papau]

1. A great site - and pretty good on getting her facts straight

Only error was "It doesn’t consider The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that 80,000 to 90,000 unemployed become ineligible for unemployment benefits every week and therefore, are no longer counted among the unemployed. " - that needs to be modified to mean not counted amoung the 2.3% portion of the 5.6% (a little less than half) that are called "insured unemployed".

insured unemployment rate and a discussion of the numbers can be found at http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/eta/ui/current.htm

I checked the whole site - and for those areas where I have any knowledge, the above was the only error.

[Frodo]

2. Bravo!

I no longer fear that my efforts have been entirely without value.

lol.


:-)

[papau]

3. Silly - you and I always knew this - but you are trying to teach the

idea to the crowd - and had not showed up on this thread -

So I felt I had to take your place for a moment.

:-)

:toast:

Now

back to the evil that happens when you try to combine data from the A series with data from the B series,

and the evil that happens when you add the birth death change over time and note that it does not add to zero like a good little correction series that is checked back to real data (and therefore to zero as to the change from month to month over a year) should .

Actually on birth death I am open to the idea that it is harmless - but they only publish a one year of monthly increases and decreases in the jobs out there in this category - and from that it looks evil! Is there a phase in of a new constant number (or a distribution of that new constant number into seasonal adjusted numbers) via some month to month allocation that is hidden from my old brain cells? I'm told it is by formula with a bad feedback problem from any GDP growth overstatements. So until you teach me otherwise, It looks, walks, and adds as a fudge factor to increase the political good news for Bush - as "domestic gov spending" affs to GDP that which is actually spent overseas via purchases from other countries - but which excapes the export/import count.

[papau]

4. Too late to edit - so I note that I do worry about how fast the no further

benefit crowd moves into not looking for work - as I suspect there are some that feel dead, or angry after 26 weeks, just sink into the welfare blues, amd yell at the interviwer that they have given up..

Discouraged and not looking may grow faster via the sample than it does in reality.

[Frodo]

6. I agree.

Though my friendly neighborhood disgruntled-out-of-worker would seem to be an exception.

The effect could be significant since that "continued unemployment" line still stays WAY above where it ought to be. So even those who are REPORTING that they are ling-term unemployed exist in larger numbers than you would expect at this point.

However, wouldn't it be a "good" thing that the numbers are growing faster in the sample? That draws some attention to the reality and implies that "reality" isn't as bad as the numbers indicate, no?

[papau]

7. depends on the human reaction as recorded in the sample - is it

an understatement, or overstatement?

All I know for certain is that this is not steady state.

[Frodo]

8. Yeah, I see that a lot.

"I don't know whether we're due for massive inflation or economy busting deflation, but I know we're in for trouble."

In other words, we knoe they're lying and that they don't know what they are doing... but we don't know exactly why or how.

[papau]

9. LOL - nope - we just know stats and samples and how hard it is

to get it right!

:-)

But they are - after they recieved the best efforts of the staff - playing with the numbers before they release.

Example - there is no reason to allow an upward bias to exist for over a year in the dif between UE estimate and following week result - and then have the bias reverse on weeks where there are gains.

Seems the correction always makes it look better concept would indicate something?

[mhr]

5. Still Unemployed Here Frodo, Another 100 Resumes Out The Door!

You have not convinced me of one damn thing.

Try eating paper, you might find your numbers don't add up then.