Think the economy is bouncing back quickly? Think again, says the former top number cruncher in charge of the Washington Bureau of Labor Statistics. Keith Hall tells the New York Post Thursday that the BLS, White House and media are wasting time focusing on an edited set of data and using it to paint an incorrect picture of the American jobs market on the mend. The current U.S. unemployment level is reported to be around 7.6 percent.
Tag Archives: BLS
Rumors of the Revival of Retail May Have Been Greatly Exaggerated
The Payroll report this month was a pretty fair outlier, with the BLS estimating only 95K private sector jobs were created. The most parsimonious explanation for a big miss is measurement error, but there is a trend worth watching. Retail employment not only fell. It was revised down in earlier months. Previously the BLS estimated that retail employment had come roaring back in the later half of 2012. Now it seems that they’ve decided retail really is dying and that fall push was an anamoly. That’s key because: 1) We can see retail dying before our eyes 2) A one time structural shift like this has got to be a hard thing to account for in the sampling procedure. 3) Its consistent with a strong decline in the labor force. The decline in retail employment, the decline in teen employment and the decline in vehicle miles driven all come together to tell the same story: Kid don’t cruise. Don’t shop at the mall. Don’t work at the mall. That 50s area ideal of a part-time job and a fixed up car is simply gone with the wind. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
3.6 Percent Unemployment–for Government Workers
There is a bright spot in the March jobless numbers, if government is your line of work.
The unemployment rate for civilian government workers dropped to 3.6 percent in March from 3.8 percent in February, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In February, there were 828,000 unemployed federal, state and local governments in the United States. In March, that declined to 786,000.
In July 2012, the unemployment rate for government workers was as high as 5.7 percent, according to the BLS, and the rate has been in a steady decline since. The current unemployment for government workers at 3.6 percent is the lowest rate since April 2011.
Since July, times have been very good for government in the United States, with governments managing to add 618,000 workers to their payrolls. In March, there were 20,633,000 total government workers in the U.S. In July the government employed 20,015,000 people.
Read More at CNS News . By Elizabeth Harrington.
ADP Benchmark Revision Adds Over 600K Private Sector Jobs
ADP released its new benchmark series today. The headline number has private sector jobs growing at a strong 200K clip in January, but dramatically from our perspective, the entire series is moved up by over 600K. Notice also how the blue line had US private sector job growth decelerating after March 2011 – the BLS benchmark date that ultimately benchmarks ADP as well. Now the red line has US job growth decelerating after March 2012. This is the tell-tale sign of a set of series which remains behind the curve and repeatedly tells us it was “most off trend” on the very date it was hand checked against the data. It is unlikely that the strongest outlier also happens to be the most robust data point. More likely is that your estimation procedure is biased downward. Of course, I mean bias here in a strictly statistical sense and not in any sociological or psychological sense. We should expect that the strong trend moving through the beginning of 2012 is eventually revised into a straight-ish line probably adding another half a million or so jobs to our 2012 estimates. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
The First Upward Revision to 2012: 2011 Payroll Series Benchmarking
By Karl Smith, Contributor Lots of data and a busy day, so I may not get to update all of my series. However, the main story is in this graph: The Blue is the 12 month moving average of monthly payroll growth before Feb revisions. The Red Line is the same moving average after revisions. As expected the March 2012 Benchmark revisions caused the BLS’s estimate of Job Growth to shift upward. For months prior to March the effect was direct. The BLS now has a direct count of jobs in March 2012 and the payroll series is forced to reflect that. However, for months after March the increase is due to the fact that the Birth/Death model is updated by the new benchmark data. The Birth/Death model is itself basically a forecast of the what future benchmark revisions will show. Since, BLS was too low on relative to its last Benchmark the model has increased its estimate of what the new Benchmark will show. However, the model is still likely behind the curve. There are a number of reasons for this but the most easy to see is this: This is a graph of how much the revised data pushed up the 12 month moving average. It peaks in March of 2012. That is, the Birth/Death model is estimating that its worst performance of the entire 2011-2012 period was on the very month were it was hand checked against measurement data. This seems unlikely. More likely is that the dynamics of the 2011 – 2012 period are so unsual that even updated the model based on March 2012 data still leaves its best guess behind the curve. Like most models B/D is predicated on the notion that the future will be like the past only more so. That is, the the model assumes the future is dominated by a continuation of the strongest current trends. In turning points, however, that principle breaks down. Indeed, that’s what causes the data to turn.” The upshot is that we will likely have another upward revision with the next benchmark. And, somewhat indirectly, this data set is the one used to calculate the wages component of GDI, which suggests GDI will be revised up as well.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest