Revisions of Jan Job Numbers - 25 Had Higher Unemployment
- Thread starter GHook93
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SteadyMercury
Gold Member
- Jan 1, 2013
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Sometimes the numbers are revised up, sometimes the numbers are revised down. Interestingly parties on both sides tend to notice only the revisions that fit the point they are trying to make.
Either way, I'm not sure how the number of states with rising/falling unemployment rates is by itself an indicator of a recession. Was there someone claiming the pre-revision January unemployment rate signified the end of a recession?
Either way, I'm not sure how the number of states with rising/falling unemployment rates is by itself an indicator of a recession. Was there someone claiming the pre-revision January unemployment rate signified the end of a recession?
pinqy
Gold Member
Well, yeah...National Unemployment went up from 7.8% in Dec to 7.9% in January. Of course we'd expect to see the same thing in the states.
And the revisions were to the historical data...the January numbers haven't been revised, this is the first release.
In order to identify signs of true economic health, the Fed will discount unemployment declines that result from diminishing labor participation rates. It is widely known that a good portion of unemployment declines since 2009 have resulted from the many millions of formerly employed Americans who have dropped out of the workforce. But like many other economists, Bernanke failed to identify where he thinks "real" employment is now after factoring out these workers. So how far down will the unemployment number have to drift before the Fed's triggering mechanism is tripped? No one knows, and that is exactly how the Fed wants it.
Are you suggesting that this is done on purpose?
The analysts and statisticians that collect all this data are hardly running their part in some sort of giant conspiracy to make things look better than they are. When the Dept of Labor releases data on employment, the data in the first release is an estimate since the data collection process is not complete at that point. The numbers are revised a few times as the collection process approaches. There isn't much more to read into this.
pinqy
Gold Member
To clarify, the non-farm payroll data (the official employment/jobs data) is revised in the next 2 months after release, and again every January as the series is rebenchmarked to conform to admin data.
The Unemployment and other Labor Force numbers are not revised except for the seasonally adjusted numbers revised every December.
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