Did the Labor Dept. miscount November jobs?

[ProSense]

Did the Labor Dept. miscount November jobs?

by Meteor Blades
Stunned would seem to be the most common reaction to last week's job report for November. Instead of 160,000 new private-sector jobs that the expert consensus predicted would be announced - with many analysts predicting far more - the Bureau of Labor Statistics said only 50,000 additional private-sector jobs had been created. And, because 11,000 government jobs had been terminated, the net was a paltry 39,000. More than one commentator called that "awful." And, indeed, it was.

But it was a surprise because there had been a plethora of mostly good news in the run-up to the jobs report, such as here, here, here, here, here, here and here. While many analysts were scratching their heads Friday - even though numerous reports from the Federal Reserve and other sources have been saying ever since the gross domestic product moved into positive territory five quarters ago that job growth could be slow for years with lots of ups and downs month to month - a few took a different approach. (Some people, of course, don't accept the government's job tally at all for any month. All those numbers are completely fabricated, they say, starting with the surveys themselves. But that's another discussion.)

One of the analysts who challenged Friday's report was Stephen Gandel at Time/CNN's The Curious Capitalist. Gandel said the BLS missed 350,000 jobs in its November count. Retail jobs. The idea that retail hiring was minus 28,000 in November does seem counter-intuitive. This year is the best in the past three years for holiday retail sales, and Black Friday and Cyber-Monday looked encouraging. So how could that sector of the economy be shedding jobs? Writes Gandel:

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Calculated Risk: BLS: Job Openings increase sharply in October, Labor Turnover still Low

[rsmith6621]

1. More Spin To Help Prop Up The Chief Compromiser

[ProSense]

2. Where is the spin?

Is this piece positive? Does spin = positive?

[Clio the Leo]

3. The whole thing's odd.

Not saying something's up .... but it's odd.