More economic good news, unemployment rate drops to 8.6%

[paulitician]

It's all about the coming Election. Winning is the only thing that counts in Politics. These numbers are pure fantasy. Expect them to magically drop some more as the 2012 Election draws nearer. Government lies. It's what they do. Do people really believe otherwise?

 

[Zoom]

They will find a reason why this is not good.

Sure it's good. Too bad though that the Christmas season won't last much past January..

Good call NoNukes. Good call.

 

[CrusaderFrank]

He's saying that because 315000 people who did not find jobs/stopped looking were removed from being listed as "unemployed," while only 120, 000 were hired in November.

The problem with his math is simple. (besides 120x3 = 360)

He's acting as though the 315,000 are somehow newly unemployed or something, which is the only way the number negates the good news that we added 120k jobs, when the reality is this:

add the 2 together: 315000 and 120000 = 435000

so before November, speaking only in the context of these two numbers - - 28% of those specific 435k folks are now employed, when before November, 100% of them were unemployed.

That's a positive in anyone's book, and as 8537 continues to school people on: holiday/seasonal hiring is adjusted in the ue % in order to reflect a more accurate number.

They see this in the article: More than half the jobs added were by retailers, restaurants and bars, a sign that holiday hiring has kicked in. Retailers added 50,000 jobs, the sector's biggest gain since April. Restaurants and bars hired 33,000 new workers. The health care industry added 17,000.

And pretend that, that means: the 8.6% number wasn't adjusted for seasonal/holiday hiring, which it was - as always.

You couldn't be any wronger if you were Paul Krugman.

I rounded 315 to 360 to get the 3:1 ratio of drops from the UE roll to the 120 hired because that's what happened.

For ever person hired, 3 just stopped looking for work. You call that Progress and good new and the DOW is up against because of it, I'll keep adding to my short position.

Said it before, one day we'll look back on this and laugh

It is a good thing. 120k more people are now empoloyed. How many "stopped looking" doesn't negate those new people working.

Yeah, terrific.

You bailed 120,000 gallons of water from the Titanic but 315,000 more gallons poured in, keep celebrating what a great job you did.

 

[pinqy]

Do you know that as fact? If yes, where can I find that information?

Yes, I know that as a fact. You can find it by reading the employment situation report at U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Notice the headings:
Employment Situation Summary Table A. Household data, seasonally adjusted
Employment Situation Summary Table B. Establishment data, seasonally adjusted

Thanks...but I cant find the formula for the adjustment.
Do you know what it is?

Here's the Reference Manual for the Arima X-12

Here's an Overview of seasonal adjustment for the CPS

And here's Adjustment proceedures as of 2011

Enjoy.

 

[PLYMCO_PILGRIM]

22 pages and i'm sure it will go to 100 with the partisan hackery.

Listen:

to those who like obama and support him;

Yes the unemployment rate is down .4%. yes that is a great thing. yes it is positive for obama.

However, less new jobs were created than total people who stopped looking for work, they did figure in retail hiring numbers which christmas hiring affects, and its just one month so we need this to be a trend that lasts into the spring for it to be really good for obama

Instead of celebrating this as good for Obama why don't you be happy for your fellow americans instead.

To those who dislike obama and don't support him;

The unemployment rate IS down .4% regardless of any quantifiers. This does look good for obama, get over it.

Intelligent people who pay attention understand how insignifigant this truly is in light of factors such as retail hiring being included, people no longer being able to collect so no longer being considered unemployed, and the fact that it is still way above the projected 8% with the stimulus and still way higher than the average under any of the last several presidents. People get it.

Instead of looking for every little thing to show how this isn't good for obama why don't you be happy for your fellow americans instead.



I know, I know...i'm just spitting in the wind with this post but someone had to say it.

Thank you.

Someone had to bring some reason to the thread....i know I'm not always reasonable but I do try to be .

 

[Zoom]

This is great news. Congrats ,Barack Obama. If he can get us the rest of the way out of the middle east and this can keep improving...It will be very hard to unseat Obama in 2012.

This cant be disputed, but an attempt will be made in here.

 

[Baruch Menachem]

It looks like we actually getting something real. This is a good thing. time to celebrate.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EMTLftgnC4"]Sing Along with Ludwig Von![/ame]

 

[CrusaderFrank]

It is a good thing. 120k more people are now empoloyed. How many "stopped looking" doesn't negate those new people working.

Yeah, terrific.

You bailed 120,000 gallons of water from the Titanic but 315,000 more gallons poured in, keep celebrating what a great job you did.

No, 315000 gallons more didn't pour in, moron. They're not newly unemployed. Just newly done looking (for many reasons, actually, they're not counted).

EXACTLY!! You can pretend you're getting ahead all you want, the reality is the situation is worse than before!

You finally got it!

 

[Soggy in NOLA]

if the three even stayed counted, then of the "4" you're talking about, there's 25% less unemployment. I don't see why that would be a negative, but ok.

There is not 25% less unemployment. U6 is still around 16.5%.... it has not changed. Even if U3 went down 25%, that would make it 6.9%, not 8.6%... anyhoo, this new rate is the result of a Gallop poll... not an official survey.

Yes yes, I know. Try reading for context. I didn't say there was 25% less unemployment.

I said of the 120k newly employed versus the 315k who dropped out.....(which is the point everyone's been discussing, for ****'s sake).....and any unemployment less than their previous total is a good thing.

Except unemployment did not go down.... they just stopped counting 310,000 people who are still unemployed. That's as if you had only one debt, a mortgage, and then saying "I don't count my mortgage as debt, therefore I have no debt".

 

[paulitician]

Hooray for Wall Street!! Will the President's followers praise Wall Street for this? Looks like they did some hiring. The President had nothing to do with it. This is why these discussions are useless. They hate Wall Street/Business yet they're the ones who just helped lower the Unemployment Rate. The President did not create a single job. Oh well,that's Dumbed-Down America i guess. Later.

 

[masquerade]

This is great news. Congrats ,Barack Obama. If he can get us the rest of the way out of the middle east and this can keep improving...It will be very hard to unseat Obama in 2012.

This cant be disputed, but an attempt will be made in here.

Great news would be that hundreds of thousands were hired into permanent positions while the number of folks who stopped looking decreased as well as the unemployment number like it did today.

Today's news is good. Hopeful it lasts, but not optimistic.

 

[BluePhantom]

Yeah, terrific.

You bailed 120,000 gallons of water from the Titanic but 315,000 more gallons poured in, keep celebrating what a great job you did.

Don't forget new additions to the workforce, Frank. The average is 115,000 per month. So you have 120,000 hires minus the 115,000 that entered the workforce (on average). That's a net gain of 5,000 new jobs against 13.3 million unemployed. Now add in that 315,000 that quit looking for work as well and the liberal celebration here seems a little hilarious.

 

[8537]

Thanks...but I cant find the formula for the adjustment.
Do you know what it is?

Well, I know the methodology. They use ARIMA (Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving Average), which in it's simplest form looks at the increase in employment / hiring each year that occurs during this period. It takes the average of that increase and uses THAT figure as a baseline. For example, let's say that:

1. Over the past 50 years, the average increase in employment for each November has been 200,000.

2. The average in every other month (not Nov, Dec, or Jan) has been 150,000.

Then we can surmise that, on average, approximately 50,000 people are added to the rolls each year thanks to the holidays. So when we seasonally adjust the data, we subtract that amount from the total.

Pretty much what I used to do when I had the temporary employment division of my company. We forecasted by looking at the same month the year before...

However, we found it to be very skewed and unreliable due to technology. For example, one year seasonal hiring dropped for us due to an increase in interent buying...and it only decreased every year after until I opted to get out of that market.

But is there an actual formula?

And is it based on percentages as opposed to "numbers of people"?

It's a multivariate regression, the bread and butter of just about every economic analysis. I don't know the components of the regression, but you can certainly find it. While one might try to say it's inaccurate, I haven't heard any explanation as to why it would be inherently biased in a specific direction.

 

[8537]

Gotta love it... 3 walk away because they can't find a job, 1 finds a job, and the unemployment rate goes down.

Yeah, nothing corrupt here.

if the three even stayed counted, then of the "4" you're talking about, there's 25% less unemployment. I don't see why that would be a negative, but ok.

There is not 25% less unemployment. U6 is still around 16.5%.... it has not changed. Even if U3 went down 25%, that would make it 6.9%, not 8.6%... anyhoo, this new rate is the result of a Gallop poll... not an official survey.

it is not a Gallop poll. Where the hell do you people come up with this stuff? It's the same two surveys that have determined employment data for decades.

 

[Chris]

Yeah, terrific.

You bailed 120,000 gallons of water from the Titanic but 315,000 more gallons poured in, keep celebrating what a great job you did.

Don't forget new additions to the workforce, Frank. The average is 115,000 per month. So you have 120,000 hires minus the 115,000 that entered the workforce (on average). That's a net gain of 5,000 new jobs against 13.3 million unemployed. Now add in that 315,000 that quit looking for work as well and the liberal celebration here seems a little hilarious.

What's hilarious is the whinning on the right over all the good news.