Bureau Of Lies and Scams: +155k Employment
2013-01-04
Karl Denninger

Zitat

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Nonfarm payroll employment rose by 155,000 in December, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 7.8 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment increased in health care, food services and drinking places, construction, and manufacturing.

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". . .
Now let's look at the household, unadjusted data, which is what I use for my tables.

And here we got big problems.
. . .
The employed count went from 143,549 (thousands) to 143,060, a decrease of 489,000 actual employed people.
. . .
At the same time the number of people "not in labor force" (those who gave up) went from 89,221 (thousands) to 89,445, an increase of 224,000.

The population of working-age people, however, went from 244,174 (thousands) to 244,350, an increase of 176,000.

So add the increase in the workforce to the decrease in employed people and you get 665,000 fewer people working, more than a half-million, adjusted for population change.
. . .
The employment rate [of the working age population] ticked down three tenths to 58.5% (following last month's two tick decline), and that confirms what I suspected when I looked at the raw data up front. . . ."

Good Graphs at site:
http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=215637

The private sector added more than 155K jobs and the public sector (government) lost jobs...both good numbers and trends.

Hopefully Congress will avoid creating another crisis with the debt ceiling and more private sector jobs are created going forward.

Given the hubris of politicans of all stripes, I doubt it.

Quote: Thunderbird wrote in post #2

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The private sector added more than 155K jobs and the public sector (government) lost jobs...both good numbers and trends.

Hopefully Congress will avoid creating another crisis with the debt ceiling and more private sector jobs are created going forward.

Given the hubris of politicans of all stripes, I doubt it.

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FYI
The employment rate comes from the household survey
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm

The number of jobs created comes from the establishment survey:
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t17.htm

Focusing on people who have 'given up' looking for work is a meaningless exercise imo.

There are thousands and thousands of jobs that go unfilled every month.

The private sector needs to create 225K plus per month, with public sector jobs slowly decreasing.

However a net 155K with the public sector contributing a negative number to the total is not a bad thing.

Quote: Thunderbird wrote in post #5

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Focusing on people who have 'given up' looking for work is a meaningless exercise imo.

There are thousands and thousands of jobs that go unfilled every month.

The private sector needs to create 225K plus per month, with public sector jobs slowly decreasing.

However a net 155K with the public sector contributing a negative number to the total is not a bad thing.

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Quote: algernonpj wrote in post #6

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Quote: Thunderbird wrote in post #5

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Focusing on people who have 'given up' looking for work is a meaningless exercise imo.

There are thousands and thousands of jobs that go unfilled every month.

The private sector needs to create 225K plus per month, with public sector jobs slowly decreasing.

However a net 155K with the public sector contributing a negative number to the total is not a bad thing.

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I seem not to have made my point clear.

There was no net 155,000 jobs counted anywhere.

The Establishment Survey raw count was -243,000 jobs.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t17.htm

The Household Survey raw count was -489,000 people employed.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm

The raw data = the actual counts of net jobs and the actual count of number employed.

The raw data is run through various statistical tools to 'smooth the data out'. To be kind the tools have a strong bias toward a growing economy. To be realistic, the statistical tools are wide open to political manipulation.

-243,000 + manipulation by the Birth and Death Model + manipulation by seasonal adjustment ==> +155,000

IMHO, -234,000 jobs and - 489,000 people employed is not a good thing.

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Quote: Thunderbird wrote in post #2

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The private sector added more than 155K jobs and the public sector (government) lost jobs...both good numbers and trends.

Hopefully Congress will avoid creating another crisis with the debt ceiling and more private sector jobs are created going forward.

Given the hubris of politicans of all stripes, I doubt it.

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One assumes whatever manipulation the BLS engages in is nothing new in this century.

Private sector (+168k) + public sector (-13K) = 155K. Not a great number but trending in the right direction.

Manufacturing +25k and Leisure +31k are encouraging subcomponents.

Ymmv.

Quote: Frank Cannon wrote in post #8

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[quote=Thunderbird|p6954]The private sector added more than 155K jobs and the public sector (government) lost jobs...both good numbers and trends.
Also, could you explain how the debt ceiling effects jobs? Thanks to the Regimes easy money policies, interest rates are at almost nil and still there is no real growth in the country. The only thing being downgraded does is effect Gov't borrowing. It is very apparent, they have done enough of that already.

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Quote: Thunderbird wrote in post #9

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One assumes whatever manipulation the BLS engages in is nothing new in this century.

Private sector (+168k) + public sector (-13K) = 155K. Not a great number but trending in the right direction.

Manufacturing +25k and Leisure +31k are encouraging subcomponents.

Ymmv.

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Zitat

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"Since the Holiday season once resulted in an increase in employment, the seasonal adjustment ought to have reflected that and lowered the raw number of jobs, not increased it by almost 400,000."

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Yes, I've noticed that a lot of times the "seasonal adjustments" are working bass ackwards at various points in the year. I recall seeing a ZH or KD article at some point in the past couple of years where they laid out how the smoothing direction changed diametrically in a few given periods from one year to the other, then back again! It was almost as if someone was screwing around just to see if anyone was really paying attention!

Quote: algernonpj wrote in post #11

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01. While the tweaking of government stats has always been with us, the heavy duty manipulation began in the mid 1990's and accelerated.

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Quote: FP123 wrote in post #12

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Zitat

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"Since the Holiday season once resulted in an increase in employment, the seasonal adjustment ought to have reflected that and lowered the raw number of jobs, not increased it by almost 400,000."

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Yes, I've noticed that a lot of times the "seasonal adjustments" are working bass ackwards at various points in the year. I recall seeing a ZH or KD article at some point in the past couple of years where they laid out how the smoothing direction changed diametrically in a few given periods from one year to the other, then back again! It was almost as if someone was screwing around just to see if anyone was really paying attention!

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Too bad the MSM, where most get there news hasn't been paying attention to or reporting on the 'bass ackwards' seasonal adjustments. It's a shame more don't regularly check out ZH or KD on Government stats.

Quote: algernonpj wrote in post #14

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Too bad the MSM, where most get there news hasn't been paying attention to or reporting on the 'bass ackwards' seasonal adjustments. It's a shame more don't regularly check out ZH or KD on Government stats.

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