Tag: bls

#rsrh Unemployment rate *drops* to 9.4%.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that it’s down to 9.4% from 9.8%, seasonally adjusted (if you prefer the U-6 numbers, it’s down to 16.7% from 17.0%, seasonally adjusted).  So… half a full point, huh?  In 2009, the drop between November and December was half that; of course, in 2009 the business community wasn’t breathing a collective sigh of relief because the American people had just given the House of Representatives back to the adults.

Hey, I guess that we’ll just have to see if that was a justified sneer or not, huh? – Personally, I’ve always managed to avoid taking pleasure at the sight of bad economic news when it benefited my side; one wonders if my opposite numbers are going to be able to do the inverse…

Moe Lane

PS: More from Instapundit, including this dash of cold water.

What the BLS survey modification will and will not do.

You may have heard that the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has modified its survey of unemployment.  There is probably going to be a good deal of confusion over what’s being changed, so let me summarize the situation.

  • Official unemployment numbers are derived from the Current Population Survey (CPS), which surveys American households every month in order to gather various statistical data.  The potential confusion lies in that the CPS isn’t uniform in how it defines unemployment; depending on the question, somebody may or may not be actually considered to be in the labor market.
  • So the CPS will (over the next four months) start including people who have been out of work  for between two and five years in their calculation of median length of unemployment, which the BLS pretty explicitly thinks is being under-reported.  Previously, the cutoff date was only two years; anybody out of work for longer than that would be considered effectively not part of the work force for the purposes of determining this specific statistic.
  • However, the CPS will not change the BLS definition of ‘unemployed‘ (no job, actively looking for work in the last month, ready to work) for the purpose of their most commonly reported-on statistic (the U-3, which is currently 9.8%).  As Ed Brayton – no friend to the Right – notes, this means that the currently reported unemployment rate numbers will not change because of this policy.
  • Take up any contradiction in the assumptions behind calculating median unemployment length and calculating the current unemployment rate with the BLS.

Continue reading What the BLS survey modification will and will not do.

#rsrh BLS unemployment survey out soon…

…the last one before the election. Nobody’s expecting anything much in the way of short-term news, but apparently they’re going to have revisions to the non-farm employment numbers from April 2009 to March 2010.  Translation: the current unemployment rate probably won’t go up or down much, but past ones might*.  Remember, might: also remember, we want good news.  People are hurting out there, and somebody needs to care about that, even if the current ruling party apparently doesn’t.

Moe Lane

*As MarketWatch puts it, “Friday’s new numbers could vastly alter perceptions of labor conditions. They may also change perceptions of how well the stimulus legislation worked as a job-creating program.”  It would certainly be nice if the numbers were better than we thought…

June BLS: Job recovery stalled out.

UNEXPECTEDLY!

Total nonfarm payroll employment declined by 125,000 in June, and the unemployment rate edged down to 9.5 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The decline in payroll employment reflected a decrease (-225,000) in the number of temporary employees working on Census 2010. Private-sector payroll employment edged up by 83,000.

Note, of course, that May’s job report was equally stalled-out; the 431,000 jobs that were ‘gained’ that month were also Census workers. We’re just at the end of that particular necessary, but strictly limited, exercise in government spending.

So, how is that Keynesian economics thing working out for people, anyway? – Because where I’m sitting it seems to be roughly equivalent right now to revving the engine when the car’s set to neutral.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to RedState.