Dr. Paul Craig Roberts: More Misleading Official Employment Statistics!

• More Misleading Official Employment Statistics — Paul Craig Roberts! 
  by http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/
  The payroll jobs report for November from the Bureau of Labor Statistics says that the US economy created 203,000 jobs in November.  As it takes about 130,000 new jobs each month to keep up with population growth, if the payroll report is correct, then most of the new jobs would have been used up keeping the unemployment rate constant for the growth in the population of working age persons, and about 70,000 of the jobs would have slightly reduced the rate of unemployment. Yet, the unemployment rate (U3) fell from 7.3 to 7.0, which is too much for the job gain.  It seems that the numbers and the news reports are not conveying correct information.
  –
  As the payroll jobs and unemployment rate reports are released together and are usually covered in the same press report, it is natural to assume that the reports come from the same data.  However, the unemployment rate is calculated from the household survey, not from payroll jobs, so there is no statistical relationship between the number of new payroll jobs and the change in the rate of unemployment.
  –
  It is doubtful that the differences in the two data sets can be meaningfully resolved. Consider only the definitional differences. The payroll survey counts a person holding two jobs as if it were two employed persons, while the household survey counts a person holding two jobs as one job. Also the two surveys treated furloughed government workers during the shutdown differently.  They were unemployed according to the household survey and employed according to the payroll survey.
  –
  To delve into the meaning of the numbers produced by the two surveys, keep in mind that payroll jobs can increase simply because the birth-death model used to estimate the numbers of unreported business shutdowns and startups can underestimate the former and overestimate the latter.
  –
  The unemployment rate can decline simply because the definition of the work force excludes discouraged workers.  Thus, an increase in the number of discouraged workers can lower the measured rate of unemployment.
  –
  Before reviewing this, let’s first assume that the story of 203,000 new payroll jobs in November is correct.  Where does the BLS say these jobs are?  Are these the long-missing New Economy jobs that we were promised in exchange for giving China our well-paid manufacturing jobs and giving India our well-paid professional service jobs?
  –
  Unfortunately, no.
  –
  read more!

end