Unemployment Numbers as off April 5, 2012

[pinqy]

The BLS has two survey sites, the CES (Current employment survey) and the CPS (Current population survey). Don't ask me what the difference is but they both cover unemployment.

Actually, they don't, that's the difference. The CES is a survey of Businesses and only asks about non-farm payroll employment. The companies are asked how many people they had on payroll, average hours, average wages.

The CPS is a household survey of total employment and unemployment.

This news release presents statistics from two major surveys, the
Current Population Survey (CPS; household survey) and the Current Employment
Statistics survey (CES; establishment survey). The household survey provides
information on the labor force, employment, and unemployment that appears
in the "A" tables, marked HOUSEHOLD DATA. It is a sample survey of about
60,000 eligible households conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau for the U.S.
Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

The establishment survey provides information on employment, hours,
and earnings of employees on nonfarm payrolls; the data appear in the
"B" tables, marked ESTABLISHMENT DATA. BLS collects these data each
month from the payroll records of a sample of nonagricultural business
establishments. Each month the CES program surveys about 141,000 businesses
and government agencies, representing approximately 486,000 individual worksites,
in order to provide detailed industry data on employment, hours, and earnings of
workers on nonfarm payrolls. The active sample includes approximately one-third
of all nonfarm payroll employees.

Employment Situation Technical Note

 

[pinqy]

Funny how the lame-stream media is not reporting that the faux unemployment numbers remain stagnant in March....

The BLS publishes six separate summary statics for unemployment.

The are found at Table A-15. Alternative measures of labor underutilization

These are;

U-1 Persons unemployed 15 weeks or longer, as a percent of the civilian labor force

U-2 Job losers and persons who completed temporary jobs, as a percent of the civilian labor force

U-3 Total unemployed, as a percent of the civilian labor force (official unemployment rate)

U-4 Total unemployed plus discouraged workers, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus discouraged workers

U-5 Total unemployed, plus discouraged workers, plus all other persons marginally attached to the labor force, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force

U-6 Total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force

They are ever increasing groups divided by the labor force.

The March 2012, seasonally adjusted numbers are 4.6%, 4.5%, 8.2%, 8.7%, and 15.4%. These are down from the same month last year which came in at 5.3%, 5.4%, 8.9%, 9.4%, 10.3%, and 15.7%.

The BLS has two survey sites, the CES (Current employment survey) and the CPS (Current population survey). Don't ask me what the difference is but they both cover unemployment. It is the CPS that seems to have the info we want. Maybe the thing is that the CPS is just the overview numbers while the CES is details on industries.

I generally go here, Table A-1. Employment status of the civilian population by sex and age for the time series data.

There is so much data, presented in so many ways, that it is ridiculous to say the the government has some nefarious intent. There are dozens on pages of table and data. There are thousands of data sets.

When the BLS presents a single number, they present U-3. It's not the smallest or the largest number, it's just the standard number, the total number of people that are unemployed and looking.

But everyone is welcome to look at any of the measures any time they want to. And, you don't have to make up bogus numbers either.

Notice: Data not available: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

OK here is off the site you listed. Interesting it shows the faux unemployment rate at 8.4% for March, which come out to 12,904 (which I assume in the millions) . However it doesn't list a rate for the 'Not In Labor Force Number' for breadwinners or the longtime unemployed, THEREFORE YOU HAVE TO ESTIMATED IT YOURSELF.

No you don't. It's right there: Labor Force participation rate: 63.6%. So therefore Not in the Labor Force is 36.4% which we can confirm by 88,288/242,604 = 36.4%

Again faux unemployment listed by the site 8.4 or 12,904.
'Not In the Labor Force' is 88,288 (Again not listed as a percentage rate). Now if you want to take out the legit not in the labor force, like college students, house wives, retirees and disabled and want to put the number VERY liberally at 20% (I say it's more like 30-35%), then you have 17,657 LONGTIME UNEMPLOYED BREADWINNERS NOT IN THE LABOR FORCE. Add that to the 8.4 faux unemployment and TRUE UNEMPLOYMENT is between 17-20%!!!

Not making up numbers going off the charts

Ummm that is making up numbers. you're making up the "20%" and the 17 million.

And you must have missed the sub-set of Not in the Labor Force: persons who currently want a job. That's 6,041,000 not in the labor force who say they want a job. Less than a third of your made up number. Of course most "want a job now" are not actually available for work.