Will the Real Jobless Number Please Stand Up?

[marmar]

from HuffPost:



Dan Dorfman
Financial Columnist, Market Commentator.

Posted: December 11, 2009
Will the Real Jobless Number Please Stand Up?



The brothers Grimm began spinning fairy tales in 2007. Now 102 years later, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the government agency that doles out those closely watched monthly employment figures, seems to be giving the Grimms a run for their money.

In brief, the BLS is stacking the employment deck, a number of market professionals say. Or more specifically, they argue it is increasingly issuing misleading figures that paint a rosier picture of the country's biggest economic dilemma--mounting job losses.

In effect, the critics suggest that President Obama should factor in a lot more workers in his job-creating efforts because his labor analytical arm is woefully underestimating the number of unemployed workers.

The latest such BLS numbers-fudging is said to involve November's shockingly low jobs loss of 11,000, when the general expectation called for a much higher jobs reduction for the month of 125,000. That drop of 11,000 jobs, which was the best monthly performance since September 2008, knocked down the nation's unemployment rate to 10% from October's 10.2%. What had been widely expected for November was another 10.2% showing.

Other reported labor figures for the month, however, take issue with the accuracy of the BLS data, which, it should be noted, is very often later revised for the worse.

For example, Automatic Data Processing, the country's largest payroll service, which surveys 24 million employees a month, reported 169,000 jobs were actually lost in November. That's 158,000 higher than the BLS numbers. ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dan-dorfman/will-the-real-jobless-num_b_387074.html

[AllentownJake]

1. They are estimating small business job creation

When there is in fact none going on due to the tight credit market. The administration knows these numbers are lies.

They need a win right now to prevent a total collapse and rebellion in the House and Senate. The progressives are getting angry.