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Number of the Week: Did U.S. Actually Shed 195,000 Jobs in July?

Wall Street Journal Original article ›

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Izzo looks at the diverging picture presented by two Labor Department surveys of unemployment in the U.S. for July 2012- an increase of 163,000 jobs or 195,000 fewer people working. One, the Household Survey is based on survey of individual households counts people and the other the Establishment Survey based on a survey of employers counts jobs. If one person holds two jobs he would be counted twice in the Establishment Survey and once in the Household Survey. If a person is a unincorporated self employed person, a family employee who isn't paid, a farm worker who is employed but not paid he is counted in the Household Survey, but left out in the Establishment Survey. The Labor Department prepares a third measure of the number of people working by adjusting for multple jobholders and for workers not counted in the survey of businesses. By this third measure the U.S. economy added 108,000 jobs in July, which is far less than the 163,000 jobs shown added in the Establishment Survey. Because of the increase in parttime work it is likely that more people are doing multiple jobs which may explain some of this difference. Another reason could be the severe drought in the U.S. that may be reducing the opportunities for work for freelance construction maintenance and day laborers because of restrictions on water use. This shows that it takes several months of data to get some sense of where unemployment is headed, adjusting the numbers for unusual events or weather, and looking behind the numbers to the sectors generating jobs. In the first quarter of 2012 more jobs were generated in the U.S. because of a mild winter, followed by fewer jobs in the second quarter, which required looking at the two quarters together to get a better picture. Adjusting for the long term unemployed who have quit looking is also necessary to get a correct reading of U.S. unemployment levels.

The complex picture presented by the surveys of the Bureau of Labor Statistics on unemployment and making sense of what they mean

01/07/2012

The Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics has two surveys the payroll survey of 400,000 establishements is the emplyer survey and gives the number of jobs added in nonfarm payrolls. The other survey is the Household survey which is based on 600,000 households and gives the unemployment rate. The number of jobs added in the employer survey of payrolls is revised sometimes by hundreds of thousands. The unemployment rate is based on the number of people looking for jobs. If people are discouraged and stop looking the unemployment rate may look better, and conversely if people feel encouraged and start looking the rate can be worse. The unemployment rate can also look better even when jobs are coming in at less than the 125,000 jobs a month that account for population growth to keep the unemployment rate stable.

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