OT: Jobs Report

[Jeffreauxdawg]

Looks like the Bureau of Labor Statistics made an error. They (phone screeners who randomly call out for the survey) keep classifying people that are temporarily unemployed because businesses are shut down as absent from work instead of temporarily unemployed. That's why the numbers are so far off from expectations. Still a big beat, but the unemployment number should be 16.3% instead of 13.3%. It will be revised downward next month.

https://www.thestreet.com/mishtalk/economics/surprise-the-bls-admits-another-phony-jobs-report

 

[57stratdawg]

Rude... Although that makes more sense.

 

[patdog]

That's not an error. If true, that's fraud.

 

[msstate7]

2.5 million new jobs was correct though, right? Your link says the Bloomberg consensus was -7.725... that's off by 10.225 million. That's still a pretty bad prediction, eh?

 

[00Dawg]

Since it's a continuing error, that means the % improvement is still correct?

As in, March and April are worse than we thought, too?

 

[Jeffreauxdawg]

2.5 million new jobs was correct though, right? Your link says the Bloomberg consensus was -7.725... that's off by 10.225 million. That's still a pretty bad prediction, eh?

It's all a mess. Based on the numbers, it looks like 140 million is the nonfarm full employment workforce number (April 20.5 million unemployed ÷ 14.7% unemployment = 140 million total.) So if 3% were miss classified that would be 4.2 million people that are temporarily unemployed that were not counted. So potentially Bloomberg predicted -7.5 million and it was really -1.7 million... Still a huge miss. This report is kinda silly at this point because we still have no idea of how many businesses will reopen and/or how many people will go back to work when they do.

We have no idea of who is actually unemployed, furloughed, on unpaid leave or anything else... Furloughed workers are drawing unemployment, but counted as "absent" if their business is open. PPP workers are now getting paid by employers because of loan conditions, but may not be actually working because the business is not even open. Some will never open. It's going to take months for all this stuff to shake out. That jobs report is a mess. It should be mothballed.

Here's continuing unemployment. These are people that are collecting at least a second week of unemployment. Still probably has flaws, but it looks like we crested the hill at the end of May.

https://www.investing.com/economic-calendar/continuing-jobless-claims-522/

View attachment 16346

 

[Jeffreauxdawg]

I would assume so, but I have no idea how much so. My guess is it's pretty close to the same amount, but who knows. I think the PPP probably throws this way out of whack. How many businesses on PPP will bring everyone, some, or none back in July... It's an impossible figure to track.

Continuing claims is the better number. See link above.

 

[msstate7]

You're obviously way more knowledgeable about this than me, so I'll take your word on it.