U.S. Economy Loses 4000 jobs in August -- Reporters fail to report real story...

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TipsyMcStagger

Senior member
Sep 19, 2003
661
0
0
Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper
Originally posted by: CycloWizard
So lots of doom and gloom, but where are the unemployment numbers? Still well below 5%. So who cares? At 4.6% unemployment, losing 154k jobs is just about trivial.

Do you believe those unemployment numbers? The published unemployment numbers are bogus!

The government's unemployment numbers:

1. Fail to account for people who have "dropped out of the workforce" because they became so fed up with looking for a job that they stopped looking.

2. Don't take underemployment into account, such as people who work part-time or who are significantly underemployed and involuntarily-out-of-field.

3. Don't take into account people who would like to work but decided to retire because they couldn't find any worthwhile jobs.

4. Don't take into account stay-at-home spouses who would like to work but decided to stay at home because they couldn't find anything worthwhile.

1. Cry me a river. If you drop out of the workforce because you become "fed up" with looking for a job, you're a quitter - nobody wants to hire quitters. If you owned a company, would you really want to hire someone who expects a job on a silver platter and won't take a job to make ends meet while looking for a better job?

2. "Underemployed" a buzzword used by sham colleges that advertise during daytime TV.

3. See #1.

4. See #1.
 

imported_Tango

Golden Member
Mar 8, 2005
1,623
0
0
Originally posted by: Bowfinger
Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
If the unemployment rate is deceptive then what is the actual unemployment rate, without the alleged Bush Co. BS?
See my edit. I've read that if we measured unemployment the same way industrialized European countries do, our reported rate would be in the 8% - 10% range. I cannot verify that, however.

Correct. The ways of calculating employment and unemployment can in fact change the figures quite a lot. It has already been discussed a lot how in the beginning of the decade some EU countries had both unemployment and employment figures higher than the US, something that should be impossible but happens because of the two different ways to calculate the statistics (and also the different parameters used, most important of which is the number of months after which one is considered outside of the labor force).
 

sandorski

No Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
70,083
5,611
126
Originally posted by: TipsyMcStagger
Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper
Originally posted by: CycloWizard
So lots of doom and gloom, but where are the unemployment numbers? Still well below 5%. So who cares? At 4.6% unemployment, losing 154k jobs is just about trivial.

Do you believe those unemployment numbers? The published unemployment numbers are bogus!

The government's unemployment numbers:

1. Fail to account for people who have "dropped out of the workforce" because they became so fed up with looking for a job that they stopped looking.

2. Don't take underemployment into account, such as people who work part-time or who are significantly underemployed and involuntarily-out-of-field.

3. Don't take into account people who would like to work but decided to retire because they couldn't find any worthwhile jobs.

4. Don't take into account stay-at-home spouses who would like to work but decided to stay at home because they couldn't find anything worthwhile.

1. Cry me a river. If you drop out of the workforce because you become "fed up" with looking for a job, you're a quitter - nobody wants to hire quitters. If you owned a company, would you really want to hire someone who expects a job on a silver platter and won't take a job to make ends meet while looking for a better job?

2. "Underemployed" a buzzword used by sham colleges that advertise during daytime TV.

3. See #1.

4. See #1.

Ridiculous.
 

sandorski

No Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
70,083
5,611
126
Just a few points:

1) Re Impending Retirements: They've been talked about for over a Decade, because of simple Demographics. They didn't claim that it would start happening immediately, but that around our current time frame they would begin at an accelerated rate. So after many years of predicting it, it is happening as expected.

2) Unemployment Rate: The rate itself is kind of useless, there are a number of factors that affect it or are better Indicators. Some people give up finding a Job(as mentioned earlier) then are removed from the calculation, some Retire, some start their own Business, etc.

3)Can't recall exact terminology, but one statistic that's more important is the % of Employable Population that is Working. This number was quite high during the '90's, but fell off post 2k. The reasons for that fall off could be varied, from going back to School, having Children, to simply losing a Job and not finding another(for whatever reason(s)).

Overall the US Economy is slowing down right now and lower Job Creation is likely to occur because of that. Other factors are coming into play though and it's quite possible that Job Creation could actually reverse as the Baby Boomers continue to Retire en masse.
 

Siddhartha

Lifer
Oct 17, 1999
12,502
1
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I wonder if the FED is going to allow the economy to go into recession a year before a presidential election.
 
Oct 30, 2004
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Originally posted by: CycloWizard
Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper
I'm not sure anyone has the real numbers, but I'm pretty certain that the alleged 4.7% is far too low based on my observations of the world around me and all of the newspaper headlines I've read about mass layoffs and whatnot over the years.

So your anecdotal experience supercedes the government agency whose sole job it is to compile these statistics? And I'm the noob? K.

Yes, I take my anecdotal impression of the situation based on having read a horde of newspaper articles and having heard many news reports about subjects related to the economy (mass layoffs, etc.), the monthly jobs numbers, and also the application of the logic underlying global labor arbitrage applied to the nations economy much more seriously than numbers that have, in all probability, been politically massaged, especially when, as I have shown, those numbers are necessarily bogus to begin with.

I'm sorry I called you a "noob" for your having taken the reported unemployment rate seriously, but I was looking for a more diplomatic term than "moron".

Perhaps you missed the news report? If the government's number of a loss of 4000 jobs for the month is to be believed or even merely somewhat accurate, it means that the nation lost about 150,000 jobs, +/- a couple ten thousand, relative to the increase in the size of the working aged population.

Unemployment rate at 4.7%? I don't believe it. You're going to need to show me lots of evidence to convince me that it is even in the same ballpark as the real number.

Also, having such a low unemployment rate defies the logic of global labor arbitrage--when you send millions of jobs overseas, when you fill jobs at home with foreigners on work visas and with illegal aliens, it has to have a negative effect on the employment rates of Americans.

Ah, so now we get to the heart of the matter. You've decided that outsourcing and illegal immigration imply a high unemployment rate, regardless of any evidence to the contrary. This is what doctors like to call "jumping to conclusions." Why not try letting the evidence dictate your conclusions rather than vice versa?

Why don't you put forth an economic argument to explain how global labor arbitrage will not result in a decreasing quality of life and less material wealth for most Americans? So far no economist or commentator has been able to convincingly do it, and if they had been able to, you can bet that the media and the politicians would be shouting it from the rooftops. Perhaps you've decided that hard work guarantees economic success in life and that the American economy will continue to chug along bringing prosperity to anyone with a solid work ethic, rationality, and half-a-brain?

Could you explain how a near-sudden increase in supply relative to a relatively static amount of demand results in increased prices? Why wouldn't that decrease prices on a supply-and-demand curve?

I'm not exactly sure how the underemployed and poverty-wage-employed should be counted. I wanted to point out the fact that people who are severely underemployed can be counted as employed to back up my point that the unemployment numbers don't tell us about the real state of the job market or the economy.

But you were the one who came in this thread and tried to use employment as some indicator of economic flux. Now you're saying the exact opposite.

Yeah, when the government relents after, presumably, working hard to massage the numbers and releases a report saying that the nation lost jobs during a month, it strikes me as being a rather notable event.

If we had ideal numbers, then we would know what percentage of Americans are employed at various income levels. We might then consider the number of people who are completely unemployed plus the number who are employed in poverty wage jobs and treat it the way we currently treat the unemployment number.

Why would you do that? If I have a job, I'm not unemployed. Period. By definition. If you want to start a new "underemployed" index, by all means do so. But you can't call someone with a job unemployed - it's just wrong.

I don't see any reason why we should not count someone who can only find low wage work for 10 hours per week but who would like to work for 40 hours per week as unemployed. I don't know exactly how many hours a week such a person would need work or how low the wages would need to be to count them as unemployed, but for all intents and purposes, such a person is unemployed as far as I'm concerned.

I would say "No" because the airline pilot is still earning a good income. In general usage, the term "underemployed" also implies that one who is underemployed is earning a significantly lower income that what he would earn if he were properly employed.

I have a masters degree in engineering and I make $18,200/year. Am I underemployed? Underpaid maybe, but certainly not underemployed (grad student :p). Your problem is that you want to use labor statistics as an indicator of economic health, but now you've given numerous reasons as to why that's a bad idea. Instead, you've switched to your anecdotal evidence and tried to pass it off as the one true indicator of the state of things. That's just not how it works.

I said that I don't regard the unemployment number as it is currently calculated as being reliable. I'm skeptical about the labor statistics as well because I suspect that the Administration and its Bureau of Labor Statistics will try to massage the data to make it look more favorable.

That having been said, I'd still like to see a real unemployment rate, an unemployment rate plus a severe underemployment rate, and an unemployed + employed-at-poverty-wages rate. In fact, I'd love to see stats detailing what percentage of the working-aged populace is employed at various compensation levels. Would you have a problem with that?

I don't have an estimate of the percentage of working-aged Americans who are either involuntarily unemployed or working in poverty wage jobs, but I suspect that it's a high number, at least 20%.

Don't forget to wash your hand before you eat. In fact, you should probably wash all the way up to your elbow after pulling something like that out of your ass.

You're right. It's just my opinion. That's why I qualified it with the words "I suspect".


Regardless, I've made a solid case that the use of the "unemployment number" as a measure of the health of the nation's economy and job market is fallacious for reasons that you haven't and can't refute.

Yes, that's your point now that you edited your OP that originally said the exact opposite. Isn't that convenient?

I don't remember exactly what I edited, but it was probably a grammatical error. What did the original first post say that the current post doesn't say? You say that my post said the exact opposite? Opposite of what?

The only thing I can think of that I might have edited would have been to add this part, but I think I put that in the original post:

How could reporters miss that crucial fact? Did anyone read any news reports or hear any reporters mentioning that the nation also needs jobs to keep up with population growth? Is it that reporters are unaware of it because economists (who should know better) are purposely misleading them by failing to mention this key fact, or is it that reporters are concerned about setting off a panic amongst the public?

Or are you talking about a later post?
 

ProfJohn

Lifer
Jul 28, 2006
18,251
8
0
Bowfinger? from my understanding the unemployment rate many European countries post is way lower than the real figures. This seems to be a big source of controversy in many of these countries.

While figuring out the real rate is important, what is more important is that they are consistent in the manor in which they calculate the rates. As long the government is consistent from month to month and president to president then the figures serve their purpose. More than anything they are a measuring stick of economic success.
 

dmcowen674

No Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
54,894
47
91
www.alienbabeltech.com
Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Bowfinger? from my understanding the unemployment rate many European countries post is way lower than the real figures. This seems to be a big source of controversy in many of these countries.

While figuring out the real rate is important, what is more important is that they are consistent in the manor in which they calculate the rates. As long the government is consistent from month to month and president to president then the figures serve their purpose.

More than anything they are a measuring stick of economic success.

Or economic lies.
 

CycloWizard

Lifer
Sep 10, 2001
12,348
1
81
Originally posted by: WhipperSnapper
Yes, I take my anecdotal impression of the situation based on having read a horde of newspaper articles and having heard many news reports about subjects related to the economy (mass layoffs, etc.), the monthly jobs numbers, and also the application of the logic underlying global labor arbitrage applied to the nations economy much more seriously than numbers that have, in all probability, been politically massaged, especially when, as I have shown, those numbers are necessarily bogus to begin with.
I'm not sure where you're from, but at least in academic circles, simply stating something is insufficient if you want to claim that it's true. Thus, your statement that you've "shown... that those numbers are necessarily bogus to begin with" is your premise. Your premise is incorrect. So far, you've shown exactly nothing except one data point: 4,000 fewer jobs in one month than in the previous month. The rest has been pure speculation on your part based on anecdotal evidence, if that. Your argument amounts to "I heard about some large-scale layoffs on the news. I've never heard about anyone hiring anyone on the news. Therefore, unemployment must be about 20% or so." Based on this line of reasoning, I'd watch who I was calling a moron if I were you.

Oh, and I believe the part you edited out said something about how this was all indicative of the tanking of the US economy and the downfall of our nation, paraphrased of course. :cookie:
 
Oct 30, 2004
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This isn't an academic journal; it's merely a discussion forum. I think I've provided good reasons to back up my claims. If I really wanted to I could spend umpteen hours conducting academic research and write an essay with footnotes, but I'm not going to do that for a mere discussion forum.
 

Bowfinger

Lifer
Nov 17, 2002
15,776
392
126
Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Bowfinger? from my understanding the unemployment rate many European countries post is way lower than the real figures. This seems to be a big source of controversy in many of these countries.
That could well be. I've never looked into European employment stats.


While figuring out the real rate is important, what is more important is that they are consistent in the manor in which they calculate the rates. As long the government is consistent from month to month and president to president then the figures serve their purpose. More than anything they are a measuring stick of economic success.
While I agree with that in concept, there are a couple of caveats one must consider in this specific case. First, it is not truly a consistent metric because the rules have changed over time. For example, the BLS under the Bush administration changed the way "employment" is calculated to add almost one million jobs. (I documented this in an earlier thread here. I believe it took effect in January, 2003, but I may be off a year.) This reporting change was a nice windfall for the Bush admin at the time -- they were several million jobs in the hole -- but that doesn't necessarily mean the metric change was unreasonable. It does, however, mean that one cannot do an apples-to-apples comparison of current employment stats with earlier stats without compensating for the change.

The other caveat is that even if a metric is consistent, it may be inadequate. The gap with the unemployment metric is that it does not measure the quality of employment. It's still good enough for rough month to month comparisons, but it's not a very good long-term metric when there are fundamental shifts in the nature of employment. For example, it does not reflect the number of people who've accepted part-time employment when they want and are available for full-time employment. The BLS does track this information; it has increased dramatically over the last few years. The common employment and unemployment stats do not reflect it, however.

The other major weakness in the commonly-reported BLS stats is they do not measure job quality. Somebody who used to be a $100K engineer but is now earning $25K at Wal-Mart is still counted as employed. A manufacturing worker who used to make $60K per year but is now earning $5K or so a year doing odd jobs is still counted as employed. To the best of my knowledge, BLS does NOT have a metric tracking people who have been forced to accept so-called low-quality jobs, i.e., jobs that are not as good as the ones they used to have. Because this is not tracked, we have lots of anecdotal reports about how we're losing "good jobs", but no solid data to validate the complaint.
 
Sep 12, 2004
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Originally posted by: Bowfinger
The other major weakness in the commonly-reported BLS stats is they do not measure job quality. Somebody who used to be a $100K engineer but is now earning $25K at Wal-Mart is still counted as employed. A manufacturing worker who used to make $60K per year but is now earning $5K or so a year doing odd jobs is still counted as employed. To the best of my knowledge, BLS does NOT have a metric tracking people who have been forced to accept so-called low-quality jobs, i.e., jobs that are not as good as the ones they used to have. Because this is not tracked, we have lots of anecdotal reports about how we're losing "good jobs", but no solid data to validate the complaint.
There's also the flip-side to job quality. How about the people who were making $20K not long ago who are now making $30K, or those who were making $40K who are now making $65K, etc.? Job quality doesn't necessarily imply that it's only an erosional trend.
 

Bowfinger

Lifer
Nov 17, 2002
15,776
392
126
Originally posted by: TastesLikeChicken
Originally posted by: Bowfinger
The other major weakness in the commonly-reported BLS stats is they do not measure job quality. Somebody who used to be a $100K engineer but is now earning $25K at Wal-Mart is still counted as employed. A manufacturing worker who used to make $60K per year but is now earning $5K or so a year doing odd jobs is still counted as employed. To the best of my knowledge, BLS does NOT have a metric tracking people who have been forced to accept so-called low-quality jobs, i.e., jobs that are not as good as the ones they used to have. Because this is not tracked, we have lots of anecdotal reports about how we're losing "good jobs", but no solid data to validate the complaint.
There's also the flip-side to job quality. How about the people who were making $20K not long ago who are now making $30K, or those who were making $40K who are now making $65K, etc.? Job quality doesn't necessarily imply that it's only an erosional trend.
True, but the changes you describe, people getting better jobs as their careers advance, is the norm historically. It is the traditional cycle of things, one starts low and works his way up the ladder. In essence, it is a relative constant as you compare current stats to past stats. What it unusual and unmeasured is the great number of people who have been pushed off that ladder, who've lost their careers and been forced to accept significantly lower quality jobs. That shift is not reflected in the BLS employment figure.