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April 04, 2004
About Those So-Called "New" Jobs...
Update: Nathan Newman points out that despite the increase in jobs, the number of working hours has fallen. Just A Bump In The Beltway described "time shaving," the practice of secretly deleting workers hours to cut their paychecks and fatten a company's bottom line. Regarding part-time workers, there is also the long-standing practice of scheduling them for an hour or two shy of qualifying for full-time status -- and the medical benefits that go along with it. The proposed Bush rewrite of the Fair Labor Standards Act will eliminate overtime by allowing companies to "promote" hourly workers to managerial status. Please look at Wal-Mart, which had lost a lawsuit in 2002 for ripped off workers using some of these practices.
More: The rise in part-time employment makes up the bulk of the new jobs. (via Body and Soul)
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Scout at And Then... isn't the only blogger suspicious of Bush's so-called job bubble. Yes, there were 308,000 jobs in March. What the Bush Propaganda Machine doesn't tell you is that while there are "new" jobs (more on the allegedly "new" in a second), unemployment rates are also . To be exact, unemployment rates are up to 5.7%. Plus there's the pesky problem that the figure includes the 75,000 California supermarket workers who returned to their jobs after the strike ended. Those aren't new jobs. The harsh winter is ending too, resulting in the yearly, temporary increase in construction jobs. As summer approaches, more seasonal jobs will become available - mostly part-time, all low-paying with few or no benefits.
It looks like the job bubble is another example of Bush's "fuzzy math."
Posted on April 4, 2004 at 08:38 AM | Permalink
Comments
i was trying to figure that out yesterday. how exactly can there be a surge of new jobs created, but a rise in the unemployment rate? are they measuring the same time period? it simply does not make sense
Posted by: upyernoz at Apr 4, 2004 1:20:51 PM
From what I read, the rise in the unemployment rate is due to the increase in people looking for jobs because of news of the jobs surge. However, these people are now looking but not finding jobs themselves. The figure could be part of the way unemployment does not count those people who have stopped looking for jobs because they had given up. Now, the ones who had stopped looking are looking again -- and finding nothing.
Posted by: Trish Wilson at Apr 4, 2004 1:26:20 PM
but wait, if the rise in employment is explained by masses of people noticing the better job market and beginning to look again, why was this "surge in jobs" a surprise? 3 days ago we all thought the job outlook sucked. how did these unemployed people know better than the rest of us?
i'm pretty suspicious of all jobless stats in this country. there are so many grey areas, its just too easy to define away a large segment of people that most people would think of as "unemployed"
take my sister, for example. she graduated from a highly ranked business school a year ago and still has not found a job in business. about 7 months ago, he savings dried up and she moved back home with my parents. although she can't support herself she got a job tutoring kids for the SAT through kaplan. its just part-time. meanwhile, she continues to look for a real job in marketing. personally, i consider my sister to be unemployed and she considers herself to be unemployed too, although technically speaking, she has a job. is she part of the 5.7% unemployed according to the government? is her kaplan job for 10 hours a week considered to be one of these new jobs in the surge?
Posted by: upyernoz at Apr 4, 2004 2:24:38 PM
I don't think it's a "better" job market. People are reading the media spin about this increase in jobs in March and thinking "better" job market so they go look - and find little or nothing.
Nathan Newman has better information about the figures. He quoted the details of the jobs report that said that "despite the increase in jobs, hours worked in the economy fell by 0.1 percent. The average workweek also fell by a tenth of an hour to 33.7 hours. Hours worked in the manufacturing fell 0.3 percent, with a drop of 0.1 percentage points in the average workweek to 40.9." Newman says that "while job growth was 0.2 percent, the amount of hours worked for everyone else fell on average 0.1 percent."
Newman described something similar to what you described about your sister. He wrote, "when I refer to my eight months last year of unemployment, I sometimes say I was a "consultant" because I did a few weeks on a contract. So who knows what people surveyed mean when they say they are employed in the alternative survey-- which is why most people will believe there's a recovery only when it shows up in actual payroll hiring." He mentioned the Household Survey, which is "catching the rise of more self-employment and independent contractors, folks not listed in the payroll survey."
He has lots of posts up about the jobs and unemployment news, and he's a much better source for the information than I'll ever be. Unless I quote him. ;)
What concerns me is that, since it's now spring, there will be that normal, annual rise in seasonal work like road construction, housing construction, grounds labor, and seasonal retail, but if it's anything like it was last year, there the fewer jobs of that sort will be available this season than previous years. Plus the hours will likely be shorter, in keeping with the trend Newman had mentioned. Pay will suck and there will likely be no benefits. BUT... those increases will be touted by Bush between now and November as massive job increases that could only mean that the economy must be on a rebound. He'll misuse the real labor figures in his election campaign.
Posted by: Trish Wilson at Apr 5, 2004 8:06:23 AM
You people kill me.....When the statistics dont go your way you question them..when they do go your way you are in bed with them...AMAZINGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!
Just proves that you really hope the economy is bad and will do anything to prove it so you can continue to hate the 2nd greatest president ever!!!
Posted by: "dave" at Apr 5, 2004 8:31:25 AM
dave,
did you read what i wrote? i questioned the statistics because they were contradictory. on the one hand, the government reported a surge in job creation, but in the same report it also said the unemployment rate went up. why is it unreasonable to wonder how this is possible? what is amazing to me is how you can parrot the "second greatest president ever" line for someone who has presided over the worst job creation record since the great depression and has probably done more to endanger our safety than any other president in my lifetime.
Posted by: upyernoz at Apr 5, 2004 10:56:41 AM
Because unemployment insurance records relate only to persons who have applied for such benefits, and since it is impractical to actually count every unemployed person each month, the Government conducts a monthly sample survey called the Current Population Survey (CPS) to measure the extent of unemployment in the country. The CPS has been conducted in the United States every month since 1940 when it began as a Work Projects Administration project.
Does this explain why the statistics are contradictory? You did not actually think they were hard numbers did you? lol..well i guess i expected more.
Over the course of a year, the levels of employment and the associated job flows undergo sharp fluctuations due to such seasonal events as changes in the weather, reduced or expanded production, harvests, major holidays, and the opening and closing of schools. The effect of such seasonal variation can be very large.
CHANGES IN WEATHER...would probably account for the seasonal cyclical increase in jobs.
Which..is why most right thinking individuals just dont understand when liberals claim job losses when..in actuality it is just a cyclical change easily tracked to seasonal work. which is nothing anyone can do anything about..unless you want to pay a construction worker to do nothing in the winter??? These are not the same reports..they are totally seperate from different sources.
Instead of just complaining and blaming it on gw...DO some research..open your eyes..it's all out there...dont just believe what dan rather tells you.
ALSO... job creation statistics have only been accounted for since 1992. so to say that gw presides over the worst job creation since the great depression is simply a false statement.
" has probably done more to endanger our safety than any other president in my lifetime." I really wish i could understand what you mean by that?..how EXACTLY has george bush endangered your safety? your safety! lol...if you fall down and go boom its gw's fault? poor thing!
Posted by: "dave" at Apr 6, 2004 10:40:13 PM
While I am certainly not an economist, I am certainly able to notice trends in my local area.
Upyernoz's sister seems to be suffering underemployment. I'd like a way to track our underemployment rates. Here in Indiana, we had an unemployment rate of 5.3% for March. It seems like such a low number, but when you drive past the unemployment office and they're busy as hell, it really gets put into perspective. At my place of employment we get applications turned-in every single day, but we just aren't hiring and haven't been hiring in about 1 year. In fact, we've cut some hours of a section of our staff.
Within management, it's easy to see the numbers and understand why we have to cut hours, but not all of our employees understand. They get frustrated (of course, it's less money in their already-small paychecks), but they feel stuck, and really, they are. It's not like they're able to go out and find a better job.
I've lived in this area since 1990, and this town has certainly grown since then (a big-ten university town). We have prominent businesses that have stayed in our town through ups and downs, layoffs and cutbacks, and subsequent re-hirings (no new jobs, mind you, just hiring back those they laid-off). But even with all of our growth, we've never had employment problems like these until recently.
While not all of our town's employment ills can be blamed solely on Bush, we have been affected through lack of federal funding in many other areas. Our schools certainly feel it.
Yesterday in my Social Problems course our professor passed out the NY Times article regarding time shaving. One of my classmates is a current Mal-Wart low-wage employee, and I'm a former low-wage employee. We're able to compare our experiences and share with our classmates. I never noticed discrepencies on my paychecks, but then again, I was never thinking about my managers lying about my time. My classmate said she was now going to write down her clock-in and clock-out times.
Something I found shocking, she reported that when she first started working there managers would tell employees that they had to clock-out for their 15-minute breaks. When I worked there, it was understood that your 15-min breaks were paid, and that's how it is supposed to be still.
We could go on for hours about how shitty Mal-Wart is, can't we?
I haven't noticed this practise in my own place of employment, but I'm certainly going to be paying attention from now on.
Posted by: Annie J. at Apr 7, 2004 7:46:47 AM
Annie, "Dave," and Noz, have you seen Bob Herbert's latest NY Times Op-Ed? I posted a link to it today, with my comments. I've also seen a report stating that the middle class has been paying fewer taxes. It seems that this could easily be explained in that the middle class has been earning less money over the past few years, per Herbert's Op-Ed and other observations about employment trends.
Posted by: Trish Wilson at Apr 7, 2004 9:29:42 AM
Because unemployment insurance records relate only to persons who have applied for such benefits, and since it is impractical to actually count every unemployed person each month, the Government conducts a monthly sample survey called the Current Population Survey (CPS) to measure the extent of unemployment in the country. The CPS has been conducted in the United States every month since 1940 when it began as a Work Projects Administration project.
Does this explain why the statistics are contradictory? You did not actually think they were hard numbers did you? lol..well i guess i expected more.
you didn't really answer my question. the rise reported was in the unemployment rate (which is not the same thing as a rise in new unemployment claims) at the same time there was a surge in new jobs. no, i didn't think either statistics were "hard numbers." that's why i questioned their apparent inconsistency
ALSO... job creation statistics have only been accounted for since 1992. so to say that gw presides over the worst job creation since the great depression is simply a false statemen
that's not true. historians have established the net number of job losses in the great depression. labor statistics have been taken by the gov't since the 1940s, although the types of things measured and the methodology has not always been consistent.
" has probably done more to endanger our safety than any other president in my lifetime." I really wish i could understand what you mean by that?..how EXACTLY has george bush endangered your safety? your safety! lol...if you fall down and go boom its gw's fault? poor thing!
it was an off topic comment, referring more to an entirely different reason why i don't like the president. i was referring to his pathetic "war on terror" and how it has done more to galvanize anti-americanism and endanger americans living abroad than any other president in my memory (just last september, i was sitting in tashkent uzbekistan with a bunch of ex-pats trying to figure out if there has ever been a worse president in terms of their personal safety than mr. bush, or any other president who surrounded himself with a more ignorant bunch of ideologues. none of us could come up with one). that, and not the job creation business, is the principal reason i dislike the president.
Posted by: upyernoz at Apr 7, 2004 9:41:11 AM
historians have established the net number of job losses in the great depression. labor statistics have been taken by the gov't since the 1940s, although the types of things measured and the methodology has not always been consistent. historians? http://www.bls.gov/bdm/bdmfaq.htm
This is a link for the dept of labor statistics that says that Please send me a link that lists the number of job losses since the great depression. I have provided a link proving you wrong...please if you are going to spout statistics..have the proof. I BELIEVE YOU DONT! you are just spouting off without facts to back them up.
who surrounded himself with a more ignorant bunch of ideologues. none of us could come up with one). that, and not the job creation business, is the principal reason i dislike the president.
This is nothing more than a personal opinion.. I get it now..lol..you just dont like him so any nonsense you spew is supposed to make your fellow liberals stand around and shake their heads up and down agreeing with you, Regardless if you have proof or not.
If you hate someone..in the future..you should just say..ya know i just dont like the guy instead of spreading your useless unsubstantiated babble about what he has or hasnt done.
I honestly think that any president we have ever had. had only the best intentions for the people of the united states in mind. Even if they spent their time on my dime getting blowjobs or not..they still wished only good things on us all.
I suggest you check your facts..and honestly i would like to see any statistics you have on job losses and gains in the us history...i cant seem to find any. any help would be welcomed.
Posted by: at Apr 7, 2004 12:48:20 PM
What is not included in Business Employment Dynamics?
Gross job gains and gross job losses data do not include government employees, private households, and establishments with zero employment. Data from Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands also are excluded from the national data.
Something i am exploring is to what effect call ups by the national guard and reservists have on job losses gains statistics..i have some research to do but will keep you posted..anyone have time to help...please do!
just something that popped into my mind when seeing that gov employees werent counted..well i just wonder if they count losses somehow from businesses reporting the loss of an employee but not picking them up when they are on active duty???? These statistics are from what i can tell hard stats..not a survey.
Posted by: "dave" at Apr 7, 2004 12:56:17 PM
Dave, if you're going to quote the Bureau of Labor Statistics it would help a great deal if you would not misrepresent what you are quoting.The Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation Summary, March 2004, has stated what I, Noz, and Annie have already written here. This is the report from where the 308,000 figure of additional jobs comes from.
The summary noted what we have already said (and what you refuse to hear): there is a great increase in part-time workers; while employment has increased the average work week is shorter because these employees are working fewer hours; the people who had stopped looking for work (and have started again) are not considered part of the unemployment statistics; and seasonal work such as construction employment that experiences a kick-up every spring (March) has risen as expected. That's just the summary. There is much more on related pages that reiterate the same thing.
That you choose to blubber a lot of nonsense in here doesn't bother me because all it does is make you look foolish. What's worse is that the Bush administration, in conjunction with the media, have misrepresented this report to the American public.
Posted by: Trish Wilson at Apr 7, 2004 1:45:37 PM
This is the report from where the 308,000 figure of additional jobs comes from. What i was quoting was the actual data..not the summary which you link above.
And please show me where i refused to hear something? please dont put words into my mouth in the future.
I simply stated that it is impossible to say that bush has lost more jobs than any president like mr nosehair says because it is not an area that the bureau of labor statistics has kept records. what part dont you understand so i can further help you???
What's worse is that the Bush administration, in conjunction with the media, have misrepresented this report to the American public. where and how??? the media? lol..the media is run by your "PEOPLE" unless you watch fox news...which i highly doubt!
Posted by: at Apr 7, 2004 6:32:21 PM
you want cites? for what point exactly. that historians have calculated the number of unemployed during the great depression?
that the
bureau of labor statistics began tracking employment in 1939 (my bad when i said 1940)?
i don't get what your link is supposed to show. and you once again, have not answered my question about how to reconcile the unemployment rate (not the rate of new unemployment claims) with the reported surge in new jobs.
perhaps if you took a break from your snide comments perhaps you would have a moment to answer.
(and yes, the "ideologue" bit was an opinion. i never said it wasn't)
Posted by: upyernoz at Apr 7, 2004 8:42:07 PM
nasalhair...can you not read???? You were referring to job creation...do you know the difference between a job creation statistic and an unemployment statistic??? you said in your off the cuff comment "what is amazing to me is how you can parrot the "second greatest president ever" line for someone who has presided over the worst job creation record since the great depression "
Job creation records have only been tracked since 1992...GET IT??? you see saying off the cuff that he presided over the worst job creation record since the great depression..could not be a something that is provable..so why say it??? my link proves that if you just read it.
THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION: MARCH 2004
Nonfarm payroll employment increased by 308,000 in March, and the
unemployment rate was about unchanged at 5.7 percent. ABOUT UNCHANGED!!!!! quit trying to make a big deal out of nothing...The unemployment rate, 5.7 percent, and the number of unemployed persons,
8.4 million, were essentially unchanged in March.
While we are looking at that number..please would someone explain how your candidate will create 10 million new jobs in the next four years http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/03/26/kerry.economics/
I would be very afraid to elect a man who doesnt have a clue that if there are 8.4 million unemployed...how is it you can create 10 million new jobs? ohhhhhhhhhhhh wait i get it..its the same damn way you people add up bush's job losses..you dont count the gains!!!! so you just get 1 man to get hired and fired 10 million times and you just dont count his firings...LOL!!!
Posted by: at Apr 8, 2004 9:09:44 AM
you're really not trying to engage in an honest debate here. i will try one more time, once again ignoring your ridiculous condescending tone:
Job creation records have only been tracked since 1992...GET IT???
not true. job creation records have only been tracked by the bureau of labor statistics since 1992. various other agencies (state and private) have been tracking job creation for much longer (i had the pleasure in 1993 of compiling the state of illinois labor statistics from the previous few decades into one big messy memo) and historians have attempted to calculate all kinds of labor statistics backwards to period long before there were contemporaneous surveys.
unemployment rate was about unchanged at 5.7 percent. ABOUT UNCHANGED!!!!!
kindly tell me where you are quoting that "about unchanged" language from. you're so big on links, why no link here? and the reason it is "about unchanged" and not simply "unchanged" is because there was, in fact, a change, albeit a small one. the unemployment rate rose by .1%. so, for the third time, wny did the rate go, up even slightly, when there was such a large increase in jobs according to the payroll data? it really is a simple question. i have no idea why you're having such a hard time giving me a straight answer without unnecessary snideness. i keep giving you the opportunity to convince me that the economy is better than i suspect it is, but you simply won't take the bait.
While we are looking at that number. please would someone explain how your candidate will create 10 million new jobs in the next four years
i have no idea how kerry plans to do it. i don't work for his campaign, so how am i supposed to answer that? (as i said above, my main support for kerry--or more accurately, the reason i will vote against bush--has more to do with the president's disasterous foreign policy)
I would be very afraid to elect a man who doesnt have a clue that if there are 8.4 million unemployed...how is it you can create 10 million new jobs?
the job market grows every month as the population increases. creating 10 million jobs over the course of 4 years would fall short of full employment.
Posted by: upyernoz at Apr 8, 2004 9:53:22 AM
various other agencies (state and private) have been tracking job creation for much longer
PLEASE PROVE IT or shut up!!!!
kindly tell me where you are quoting that "about unchanged" language from. you're so big on links
dept of labor..the same damn summary you freaks have been spouting about...
as i said above, my main support for kerry--or more accurately, the reason i will vote against bush
so by your line of thinking..you could vote for anyone other than bush..and since you agree kerry is a moron..you will vote libertarian???? please do! or green party...that'll work in a pinch!
the job market grows every month as the population increases. creating 10 million jobs over the course of 4 years would fall short of full employment.. I really dont understand what you mean by this..i can tell you are unarmed arent you.
trish...you really need to help this poor fellow! LOL
Posted by: at Apr 8, 2004 12:42:41 PM
PLEASE PROVE IT or shut up!!!!
no need to be an asshole about it. why can't you have a rational discussion here?
but putting that aside, are you saying that prior to 1992, you doubt that anyone (public of private) were trying to measure job creation? when you post such a short and unsubstantial response, its really hard to understand what exactly you want me to prove. but, in an effort to show good faith here is an article that discusses efforts to measure job creation in the 1970s. this article took me about 15 seconds to google up. (as i alluded to earlier, the real basis for my statement that both public and private entities measured job creation prior to 1992 is from my own personal experience--specifically a summer job i had in 1993)
dept of labor..the same damn summary you freaks have been spouting about...
then why not provide a link? and isn't it disengenuous to not mention that the same link says the unemployment rate, in fact, increased? that is, after all, the bit i was asking about.
so by your line of thinking..you could vote for anyone other than bush..and since you agree kerry is a moron..you will vote libertarian???? please do! or green party...that'll work in a pinch!
i would support almost anyone but bush, that is true. but i will choose who i support mostly on the basis of who has the best chance of getting bush out of office. i want that disaster out before i am totally unable to show my face in the muslim world. (and as for libertarians, i think they're ultimately irrational--but that is a longer argument that i don't have time for now.
I really dont understand what you mean by this..i can tell you are unarmed arent you.
what i mean is that the u.s. economy needs to create 150,000 per month just to break even with the new entrants into the job market (see 11th paragraph down in the link i just created)
trish...you really need to help this poor fellow! LOL
anyone is free to join in. this all started because i asked a simple question. rather than giving me a straightforward answer, mr. anonymous here is getting all tied down on extraneous insults. if anyone knows exactly how it is possible for such a large number of people could enter the job market and for the unemployment rate to rise slightly, please let me know. i still am interested, but i don't think this guy is capable of explaining it
Posted by: upyernoz at Apr 8, 2004 2:37:07 PM
"Dave":
>trish...you really need to help this poor fellow! LOL
I don't think he needs help. He's doing a fine job slamming you into the ground all by himself.
Posted by: Trish Wilson at Apr 8, 2004 3:56:04 PM
you arent serious are you..LOL...he cant keep up with the conversation.
then why not provide a link? and isn't it disengenuous to not mention that the same link says the unemployment rate, in fact, increased? that is, after all, the bit i was asking about.
its the same link that trish posted above you dope. find it yourself..its there..its the summary.
im done picking on you poor defenseless losers...have a nice boring blog!!!
Posted by: at Apr 8, 2004 4:00:15 PM
The retention of good people has always been very important, but it is going to become even more critical to businesses in the near future. We are just beginning to face the transition of the Baby Boomer generation (born 1946-1964) from the workforce and the Gen Xers moving in. The problem with this transition is that as the Baby Boomers retire over the next decade, we will have approximately 10 million less people entering the workforce...
what i mean is that the u.s. economy needs to create 150,000 per month just to break even with the new entrants into the job market (see 11th paragraph down in the link i just created)
TRISH..you are so smart...please explain who is right???
keep in mind you may prove john kerry an idiot though...LOL..bye now!
Posted by: at Apr 8, 2004 4:26:59 PM
for the record, "dave" or whoever, you still have not answered my question. or perhaps you have. to be honest, i have a hard time making sense of your comments through all of the your snideness. perhaps you are smarter than us all, but your communication skills are so bad and you insist on being rude when i am trying my best to make sense of you, you undermine any valid points you may have.
im done picking on you poor defenseless losers...have a nice boring blog!!!
here's a tip. if you're going to leave in a huff, don't add another comment immediately afterwards. when you do that, your credibility is totally shot. it's really more effective to sit on your hands and resist adding any more to the conversation.
so, to summarize the history of this conversation:
1. trish posted about how jobs increased but so did unemployment.
2. i responded by asking exactly how that was possible
3. you dropped a semi-coherent comment "When the statistics dont go your way you question them..when they do go your way you are in bed with them" which neither answers my question, nor is all that substantive a criticism.
4. i asked my question again
5. you adopted your lecturing tone and told us that the government does the CPS each month (which did not really answer my question about the difference between the unemployment rate and the new jobs data) and threw in a bunch of other irrelevant rants (the "hard data" comment, the bit about the weather, etc.)
6. even though you didn't answer my question, i tried to address each one of your points--this meant i got into a discussion about how long labor statistics have been kept and whether historians have ever bothered to try to calculate labor stats for the past. again, none of that is really relevant to my question, but i was trying my best to address your questions.
7. your next post showed you were totally off your rocker. you gave a link for the BLS supposedly showing i was "wrong." how could i be wrong? i was simply trying to get an answer to my question. but you demanded links to "back up" my point and told me that i wasn't substantiating my point. again, i was not asserting a "point" but rather asking for clarification. you seemed incapable of understanding that.
8. i nevertheless try to accommodate you. i give a cite as an example of a historian trying to calculate past unemployment. i again note that i'm only trying to ask a question and request once more for your help in answering it.
9. your response (the one that starts "nasalhair...can you not read????") is yet a further depth of unsubstantial posts. you latch on to my link (which i only provided because you demanded one to back up my earlier claim that historians sometimes calculate labor stats in the past. i still don't think this really matters, or can be seriously contested) and question whether i understand "the difference between a job creation statistic and an unemployment statistic". apparently, after demanding that i show proof that historians calculate labor statistics in the past, you forgot the reason for my link and related it to sometime totally different.
then you mention that the unemployment rate was "about unchanged" at 5.7%. again, this didn't answer my question, but it at least gave me a ray of hope that i could somehow direct you back to my original question about that statistic.
you also threw in the thing about kerry's promise to create 10 million new jobs. even though you came up with this irrelevancy all by yourself, from that point onward, you seemed to be utterly convinced that kerry's proposal is what our exchange is about.
10. in response i try to point out that the BLS is not the only one who keeps track of labor statistics. again, that is not a very radical statement. at least i don't think so.
i then use your "about unchanged" comment to re-ask my original question (which you still have not answered)
finally, i tell you that i do not care much about kerry's proposal, but i make a small effort to explain why it isn't patent nonsense to propose 10 million new jobs when only 8.4 million are unemployer, because you have to factor in population increases.
11. you demand proof that entities other than the BLS track labor stats. (again, this was never my main point. i thought it was common sense, but for some reason this really seems to get your goat)
you go into a new tangent about voting for the libertarians or greens, and say you don't understnad my point about population increases.
notably, you make no effort to answer my question once again
12. once again i try to address each of your points, cutting through your insults and other bullshit. i provide you a link about historians, explain why i won't vote green or libertarian, and give you a link to explain that population increases mean more jobs have to be created.
at the end i ask my question again.
which brings us to now. you leave in a huff muttering "boring blog" but then come back again. this whole time i have tried my best to answer your questions and follow whatever semi-coherent tangent you care to pull me along, ignoring your ridiculous condescension and utter refusal to answer my simple question no matter how many times i ask. i've never met you, perhaps you are a nice person in real life. but based on your conduct here, you seem to be a raving semi-rational lunatic.
if you want to prove me wrong, show me that you are capable of focused reasonable discourse, just answer my original question.
Posted by: upyernoz at Apr 8, 2004 5:57:51 PM
i never intended to answer your question. i only, once provoked by you intended and succeded in proving you wrong to your rant about "someone who has presided over the worst job creation record since the great depression and has probably done more to endanger our safety than any other president in my lifetime." that's all i intended to do. How is it that you expect me to answer your questions but you refuse and ignore mine? typical liberal stance..to ignore the obvious. i was not even writing my first response in this thread to anything you had said.
but to answer your question...the dept of labor statistics does many many monthly reports..you are referring to two different reports..one being unemployment..which is at 5.7% give or take a tenth. this number comes from a survey of some 60 thousand semi-random households. it involves a list of questions and a telephone..it has nothing to do with actual unemployment claims it is a statistical survey perfected over years of research.
the other statistic you refer to is the job creation report. it is derived from actual forms that employers fill out when a job is lost or a job is created..its not a mandatory thing .
SO in my opinion. these two totally seperate things could easily come about just because the 60k people that were surveyed didnt necessarily have to have anything to do with the job created or lost forms.
Posted by: at Apr 8, 2004 8:13:51 PM
thanks for finally answering my question
here's my follow-ups:
(1) if the unemployment rate is a survey, what is the margin of error? why isn't that reported like other surveys?
(2) if the job creation report is strictly voluntary, why can the job creation report be considered to be a valid test of anything? a self-selecting sample is not a sample at all
Posted by: upyernoz at Apr 8, 2004 8:27:58 PM
Noz:
" if anyone knows exactly how it is possible for such a large number of people could enter the job market and for the unemployment rate to rise slightly, please let me know."
I don't know how much help this will be. If you can make better sense out of it, please feel free. I'm not sure how much it will help answer the question. It talks more about employment than unemployment.
The link to the summary I had provided earlier mentioned that population controls were adjusted in January 2004. You had mentioned population rates and their effects on employment. The BSL released "Employment from the BLS household and payroll surveys: summary of recent trends (April 2, 2004), which included information about possible causes in differences in employment trends. According to this summary, the Census Bureau determined that a downward adjustment should be made to the household survey population controls, stemming from revised estimates of net international migration for 2000 through 2003.
It also included this section about population itself. It reinforces what you had written earlier about the rise in employment having been driven by the rise in population. I'm tempted to suggest that the rise in population could also be driving the rise in unemployment, but I didn't see that discussed in the summary (unless I missed it).
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(page 9)
Population controls in the household survey - Population controls determine the weights used in the household survey to adjust the sample results to the overall level of the U. S. population. The population controls are developed by the U. S. Census Bureau. They are derived from decennial census information and, between census years, from administrative and other data. There are limitations to the population control estimates due primarily to the difficulties associated with estimating the net international migration component. The population controls contributed significantly to the discrepancy between payroll and household survey employment in the 1980s and 1990s when the household survey showed less growth than the payroll survey.
The upward trend in household employment since the end of the 2001 recession has been largely a function of the estimated growth in population. That is to say, the household survey has not shown an increase in the proportion of the population that is employed. In fact, the employment-population ration has declined since 2001: it was 64.3 percent at the start of the recession (March 2001) and 63.0 percent at the trough. The ratio declined further from late 2002 to 2003 and has been fairly flat over the past year. The increase in the household survey employment level, therefore, has been driven by the estimated growth in the population
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Posted by: Trish Wilson at Apr 8, 2004 9:19:07 PM
Noz:
"if the unemployment rate is a survey, what is the margin of error? why isn't that reported like other surveys?"
Reliability of the estimates
Statistics based on the household and establishment surveys are subject to both sampling and nonsampling error. When a sample rather than the entire population is surveyed, there is a chance that the sample estimates may differ from the "true" population values they represent. The exact difference, or sampling error, varies depending on the particular sample selected, and this variability is measured by the standard error of the estimate. There is about a 90-percent chance, or level of confidence, that
an estimate based on a sample will differ by no more than 1.6 standard errors from the "true" population value because of sampling error. BLS analyses are generally conducted at the 90-percent level of confidence.
For example, the confidence interval for the monthly change in total employment from the household survey is on the order of plus or minus 290,000. Suppose the estimate of total employment increases by 100,000 from one month to the next. The 90-percent confidence interval on the monthly change would range from -190,000 to 390,000 (100,000 +/- 290,000). These figures do not mean that the sample results are off by these magnitudes, but rather that there is about a 90-percent chance that the "true" over-the-month change lies within this interval. Since this range
includes values of less than zero, we could not say with confidence that employment had, in fact, increased. If, however, the reported employment rise was half a million, then all of the values within the 90-percent confidence interval would be greater than zero. In this case, it is likely (at least a 90-percent chance) that an employment rise had, in fact, occurred. At an unemployment rate of around 4 percent, the 90-percent con-fidence interval for the monthly change in unemployment is about +/- 270,000, and for the monthly change in the unemployment rate it is about +/- .19 percentage point.
In general, estimates involving many individuals or establishments have lower standard errors (relative to the size of the estimate) than estimates which are based on a small number of observations. The precision of estimates is also improved when the data are cumulated over time such as for quarterly and annual averages. The seasonal adjustment process can also improve the stability of the monthly estimates.
The household and establishment surveys are also affected by nonsampling error. Nonsampling errors can occur for many reasons, including the failure to sample a segment of the population, inability to obtain information for all respondents in the sample, inability or unwillingness of respondents to provide correct information on a timely basis, mistakes made by respondents, and errors made in the collection or processing of the data.
For example, in the establishment survey, estimates for the most recent 2 months are based on substantially incomplete returns; for this reason, these estimates are labeled preliminary in the tables. It is only after two successive revisions to a monthly estimate, when nearly all sample reports have been received, that the estimate is considered final.
Another major source of nonsampling error in the establishment survey is the inability to capture, on a timely basis, employment generated by new firms. To correct for this systematic underestimation of employment growth, an estimation procedure with two components is used to account for business births. The first component uses business deaths to impute employment for business births. This is incorporated into the sample-based link relative
estimate procedure by simply not reflecting sample units going out of business, but imputing to them the same trend as the other firms in the sample.
The second component is an ARIMA time series model designed to estimate the residual net birth/death employment not accounted for by the imputation. The historical time series used to create and test the ARIMA model was derived from the unemployment insurance universe micro-level database, and reflects the actual residual net of births and deaths over the past five years.
The sample-based estimates from the establishment survey are adjusted once a year (on a lagged basis) to universe counts of payroll employment obtained from administrative records of the unemployment insurance program. The difference between the March sample-based employment estimates and the March universe counts is known as a benchmark revision, and serves as a rough proxy for total survey error. The new benchmarks also incorporate
changes in the classification of industries. Over the past decade, the benchmark revision for total nonfarm employment has averaged 0.3 percent, ranging from zero to 0.7 percent.
Posted by: Trish Wilson at Apr 8, 2004 9:26:34 PM
thanks trish!
given that there is a margin of error, the 0.1% increase in unemployment may not have been an increase at all
Posted by: upyernoz at Apr 8, 2004 10:20:54 PM
i think it boils down to its pretty much impossible to be totally accurate in any set of statistics involving 290 million people. Maybe it's just that where i live..indianapolis..it's booming..construction everywhere..and everyone i know is employed if they want to be. sure there are the occasional union highpaying job losses...But..working as a nonunion contractor at a couple of major union industrial plants..its not hard to tell why those people lose their jobs..i hate to generalize..but highpaying union workers are lazy. lazy lazy..they have had it too good for too many years and they dont care if the company they work for makes money or not.
isnt it in their best interest to have them make money? I see it every day.
Posted by: "dave" at Apr 9, 2004 9:44:39 AM
Maybe it's just that where i live..indianapolis..it's booming..construction everywhere..and everyone i know is employed if they want to be
funny, my only friend who lives in indianpolis is currently unemployed (she has been unemployed or underemployed for almost 2 years now.
labor stats are illusive, but so is personal experience. i am a labor lawyer--my clients are labor unions and many of my cases involved people who are fired--so from my perspective there always seems to be a lot of jobless people. but my perspective is skewed because of my line of work.
one other thing in my skewed experience, and unlike the joblessness i encounter through my work (which has been around since i started doing labor law in 1996 when the economy was supposedly good), the most obvious recent trend is among my friends with advanced degrees. over the past three years, a surprising number of my friends who hold JDs, MBAs and graduate degrees are unemployed (or underemployed like my sister). anectdotes don't mean that much, but it is really sad to see how bad the job market seems to be for many people i know for virtually the entire time that we have allegedly been out of the recession.
p.s. "dave", perhaps the reason we clashed is because we're on opposite sides of the union-management divide? sometimes i think we can subconsciously detect our natural enemies. :)
Posted by: upyernoz at Apr 9, 2004 10:22:38 AM
Oh i see ..because someone cant get a job doing meaningless labor because one has an advanced degree is considered underemployment. I would hate for someone to take a job that was beneath them. Indianapolis is full of opportunity. No one should be unemployed for 2 yrs here..its simply not possible unless you are not looking.
I think you would be surprised to find that alot of corporations are hiring people with less education simply because it is cheaper. and they find that they are adequate for the position. those degree's in the real world are getting more and more worthless. But im mostly talking business degree positions.
Posted by: at Apr 9, 2004 11:12:05 AM
Oh i see ..because someone cant get a job doing meaningless labor because one has an advanced degree is considered underemployment. I would hate for someone to take a job that was beneath them. Indianapolis is full of opportunity. No one should be unemployed for 2 yrs here..its simply not possible unless you are not looking
sigh. so we're back to that tone of yours.
no need to jump to conclusions. you obviously don't know my friend in indianapolis' situation and i personally don't feel comfortable posting too many details about her online without her permission, so you're probably not going to get much more info. suffice it to say, that you don't know what you're talking about with her situation. she is not one of the people i was talking about with advanced degrees (that was a different paragraph). by underemployed i mean part-time temp jobs that do not cover her mortgage. over the past 2 years she has worked such jobs sometimes but because they are temporary, they always end. she is now totally jobless and she has been looking for the whole 2 years--even when she was temping she was also looking.
so to say that it's impossible for someone to be unemployed in indianapolis if they're really looking is wrong. it is possible. i know a counter-example. q.e.d.
Posted by: upyernoz at Apr 9, 2004 11:42:53 AM
SOrry i dont buy it!
http://www.indystar.com/
todays headlines...burbs are booming. Census figures show the populations in Hendricks and Hamilton County are among the fastest growing in the nation. MEANS MORE JOBS>
SOrry nose but ive lived here long enough to know what the job market is...And your friend isnt looking or has another problem. dont blame the market whatever it is.
Posted by: at Apr 9, 2004 1:00:42 PM
i guess we've reached a stalemate then. it's not really fair to debate my friend's particular problems: i won't give you sufficient information so you're left with hypothesizing that she has "another problem." all i can say is "no she doesn't." i expect you will find just as unconvincing as i find your claim that my friend who you never met has problems.
Posted by: upyernoz at Apr 9, 2004 1:56:03 PM
ive got friends where you live that have 16 jobs mon!
Posted by: at Apr 9, 2004 2:42:08 PM
and where, pray tell, do i live?
Posted by: upyernoz at Apr 9, 2004 3:35:23 PM
your bushfree white house counter isnt working here...sounds like an omen! muahhahahaha
Posted by: at Apr 9, 2004 4:09:43 PM
in other words, you went to my site to see where i lived and couldn't figure it out
Posted by: upyernoz at Apr 10, 2004 8:44:09 AM
I should have said something in this thread sooner, but I didn't and that was lax on my part. I thought some headway was made a couple of days ago, but it seems things have gone back into fight-mode on all sides. I wish it wasn't that way.
No, I'm not shutting down comments. I don't do that sort of thing.
Dave, I was rude to you in my last comment to you, and I apologize for that. I don't like myself when I get like that for no good reason.
I saw some light when I saw you and Noz talking about union and non-union construction jobs a couple of days ago. (That's when Noz had written that he is a labor attorney). What Noz said made sense - you two seem to be tackling these issues from different sides of the union/non-union management divide (as well as the education level divide).
Maybe I see things from a different perspective, having been both union and non-union when it came to movie/concert/stage work in the Chesapeake Region about ten years ago. It's not traditional construction, but it did have lots of the same characteristics of traditional union/non-union work. On the one had, the union protected me from managerial abuse - the kind of thing Noz had mentioned regarding firing. You don't want to know what happens to stage hands in non-union states. The treatment is dreadful, unless the management recognizes the value of its workers. On the other hand, when I had non-union status, it protected me from working non-union when there wasn't much union work to begin with - what Dave had mentioned about people "beneath" the labor union workers being perfectly capable of doing their jobs. This was before I had joined the local unions. My region tended to have season work. I know every union joke in the book, at least from the studio mechanics/general union stage-hands point of view. I'm aware of the favoritism given to some A listers vs. B listers in the unions. It isn't only a matter of union vs. non-union. As far as my experience goes (for what little it may be worth), it's also a matter of A-list vs. B-list.
I live in an area on the Massachusetts coast that has recently seen some increase in construction, but the increase is less than what has been common in recent years. Yup, it's that normal annual seasonal increase Bush talks about. He doesn't say that the hours worked have been down. Kerry, on the other hand, hasn't said much about the additional jobs being primarily part-time. I am not satisfied with either side.
I live in a resort town, and we aren't rich. The town doesn't have the budget surplus it had previously to repair roads. For instance, construction work is up for March. Some roads are being repaired (they really need it) and some homes are being renovated, but construction is not up compared to this time over the past couple of years. I wonder about one road in particular, a popular beach road that suffered some severe winter damage. Per my last drive-by a few days ago it remains closed. There isn't the money to fix it. Construction here can't be done if no one can pay for it.
I think both of you made good points - Dave, in that it's impossible to be totally accurate regarding 290 million people and the non-union people being fired first. Noz, regarding people who had been fired who need union protection. I've seen things (movie-wise) from both sides. I wish there was a way to get past the impasse.
I hope both of you keep posting, and I hope the people who have been lurking (I know you're out there... :D ) keep reading.
Posted by: Trish Wilson at Apr 11, 2004 1:16:56 AM
sorry trish if i slipped into fight mode again. i take full responsibility. us lawyers can't always help it
Posted by: upyernoz at Apr 11, 2004 11:35:13 AM
