Well, the August jobs report is out from the BLS. While on the surface it shows simply more of the same lethargic jobs growth, it has some rather alarming signs in it.
As discussed before, there are 2 separate reports the BLS releases. And, of course, they can be and are seasonally adjusted. This allows for some great spin. For instance, it’s being reported that we’ve created 96,000 jobs last month.
U.S. employers added 96,000 jobs last month, a weak figure that could slow the momentum President Barack Obama hoped to gain from his speech Thursday night to the Democratic National Convention.
The unemployment rate fell to 8.1 percent from 8.3 percent in July. But that was only because more people gave up looking for jobs. People who are out of work are counted as unemployed only if they’re looking for a job.
No, no we didn’t add 96,000 jobs. That figure comes from the Establishment Survey Data. Guess what happened to the numbers we used for July from that survey?
The government also said Friday that 41,000 fewer jobs were created in July and June than first estimated. The economy has added just 139,000 jobs a month since the start of the year, below 2011’s average of 153,000.
I think it was even less than that. In fact, I don’t think any jobs were created in July or August. Let’s look at the Household survey. You can go here if you want to play along at home. We’ll get the unadjusted monthly employed data. I went back to Jan of 2005 so we can get a sense of the seasonal variations and what we should expect to be seeing. And, I’ll give you the numbers of the employed for the last 4 months. Apr 142,727,000 June 143,202,000 July 143,126,000 Aug 142,558,000. The unadjusted household survey says we lost 650,000 jobs since June.
Now, that number, in and of itself wouldn’t be alarming. As we can see, there is a normal seasonal peak and trough of the employed throughout the year. The problem is, not since June of 2009 have we seen a downturn this soon and this sharp.
Interestingly enough, the unemployment rate fell by 0.2%. But, even the spin doctors at HuffPo are tired of trying to spin that as a positive.
suyts space 
Warmist or Leftist, it’s all about cookin’ the books.
Lol, yes, they use the same statistical techniques!
‘statistical techniques’….for a thousand years before PC-ism, that was known as lying. 🙂
Just checked the CIA factbook. Your population grows by 9/1000 per year.
From Jan 2009 to Jan 2012 that’s 27/1000, another 6 months and we’re at about 32/1000.
So at constant employment rate number of workers should have grown about 3% in that time.
140 mill + 3 * 1.4 mill = 144.2 million. We should be even slightly higher because there are more construction jobs in summer.
Looks like Obama needs another term to try again.
Yes, he was able to achieve an unemployment rate decrease because of the shrinking workforce.
I’m fairly certain the US can’t tolerate nor afford another Obama term.
Reblogged this on Climate Ponderings.
This administration reminds me of a George Lopez episode. His daughter is thrilled to get a new cell phone, because “The phone is free”. George points out that the Phone comes with a 2 year agreement that adds $20 to the cost of their phone bill, which means they pay $480 for it.
And her come back is “But the phone is free”! Yea, only 96k more jobs last month, BUT the rate is 8.1%
Pingback: Obama……. A Megalomaniac’s Megalomaniac A Me Too Post | suyts space