Jobs Report Revised for Better or for Worse?

Holy crap! Unemployment jumped to 7.6% last month, the worst since September 1992. Nonfarm payrolls plunged by 598,000. The economy has lost jobs for 13 straight months. Since the recession began, the economy has lost 3.6 million jobs--half of that came in the last three months of 2008.

Here's a look at the unemployment rate since 1995:

Here's another measure of employment, the number of employed as a percent of the total population.

The traditional unemployment rate only counts folks "in the labor force" so if you're not looking for a job, you're not counted. Of course, people stop looking for jobs when there are no jobs, so I really don't get that one.

How's this for a scary number. If the employed / population rate was at the level it was in April 2000, there would be nearly 10 million more jobs today. Wow.

I'm not a big fan of the nonfarm payroll report because it's constantly getting revised. On Friday, the government revised all the monthly numbers for 2008. Can you guess if they were revised better or worse?

Actually, the numbers for January and February were a tiny bit better, most everything else is a lot worse.

Comments

[Homer II:]

I don't believe 598K. The BLS held the number down under 600K so as to help prop things up a bit longer.

I believe they and other gov. bureaus, depts. are manipulating us all over the place nowadays: the interest rates, the precious metals markets, the PPT jumping in long whenever the DJI/SPX slips below 8000/800, and on and on.

Feb 08 03:16 AM

[donzelion:]

"...traditional unemployment rate only counts folks "in the labor force" so if you're not looking for a job, you're not counted. Of course, people stop looking for jobs when there are no jobs, so I really don't get that one."

Annoys me too, but mostly because "traditional unemployment" arose from a concept of employment where any job at all would generally be treated as though it were a 40-year profession. In the Great Depression, waitresses, dishwashers, clothes washers, household cleaners, etc. were not counted as "employed" - they are today.

Since too many fundamentals have changed in "employment" to make it a useful benchmark, the stat I'd like to see would seem a fair bit grimmer - homelessness. Unlike "employment," the condition of being without shelter hasn't changed a whole lot from 1930s to 2010s.

Feb 08 05:14 AM