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The U.S. unemployment rate unexpectedly shot up to 6.1 percent in August, the highest in nearly five years, as employers cut payrolls for an eighth straight month and a decline in labor markets accelerated.
84000 jobs were lost in August!!!!!
How could it be unexpected..banks/brokerages/airlines/construction have been saying for months that there would be layoffs. Since June we've seen in the news that X company to lay off y thousands of workers.
What was unexpected to me was that they couldn't find any way to fluff it up this time.
And..btw they adjusted the other months' numbers as well..upward as they underestimated those numbers.
The numbers seem to be more realistic and in line with what is going on.
What was unexpected to me was that they couldn't find any way to fluff it up this time. And..btw they adjusted the other months' numbers as well..upward as they underestimated those numbers.
What was the nature of and rationale offered for these adjustments? Are any of them regularly scheduled revisions, or did they just finagle the data until they got what they wanted?
Quote:
Originally Posted by HappyTexan
The numbers seem to be more realistic and in line with what is going on.
What data or other standards do you use to determine whether the BLS numbers are "in line with what is going on"?
We are reliving the guns and butter of the 1960's. We've had the guns and the butter will come with Osama. It's going to be much worse this time around though.
Best we can do is minimize our daily expenses. We can control how we live. I've just recently canceled my newspaper subscription (why need one when I have cable and internet), and we scrapped all plans to put our infant in daycare. I've also started selling away my stuffs on eBay.
The American economy can reduce the jobless rate to zero, just by putting everybody on the payroll, asking them to do something at home, and sending them a check on Friday. Many jobs, maybe most, do not contribute any more than that to our national productivity, but they do contribute to the "jopbless rate" and hence the "economy" just by being reported to an agency that counts jobs.
Similarly, consider this scenario. Every person has one part time job; Full employment, zero unemployment. Half the work force quits, and the remaining workers are either scheduled to work 50 hours a week, or assume a second part-time job. Now we have exactly the same number of man-hours of work being done, exactly the same aggregate productivity, but the jobless rate is 50%.
Are you starting to get the picture about the wardrobe of this particular king?
By most international standards, 6.1% is not too bad (not good either). My bigger problem is the vast amount of money being spent on a needless war (Iraq, not Afghanistan) that could have been used to do much better things within the US. You see a lot of bravado in these forums - calling for everyone's a$$ to be kicked -but there is no concept of how high the costs of war are now-a-days.
What was the nature of and rationale offered for these adjustments? Are any of them regularly scheduled revisions, or did they just finagle the data until they got what they wanted?
What data or other standards do you use to determine whether the BLS numbers are "in line with what is going on"?
Previous months numbers are always adjusted and reported. You just have to read them. The government does not give any rationale for the adjustments. I guess they estimate them and then readjust when the actual numbers are counted.
The BLS numbers don't lie but the adjustments have been changing so the resultant number is not always reality.
By "more in line with what's going on" is that now the numbers reflect big job loss numbers that reflect the MSM articles of big industry layoffs.
The numbers reflect what we read.
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