About Those (Phantom) Employment Numbers

[Demeter]

About Those (Phantom) Employment Numbers

We have long pointed out that one area where the Bureau of Labor can fudge the employment numbers is the area of imputation of jobs for new firms that are not included in the survey ( from the so-called birth/death index).

For the month of April, the imputation was was very large: 317,000. Since the BLS data showed a net gain of 88,000 jobs, this means that the survey actually showed a loss of 229,000 jobs, ex-the imputation numbers.

Dean Baker points out that:


In fairness, most of this imputation is due to seasonal factors. Many new businesses open or expand in the spring. But, the imputation was 46,000 larger than in April of 2006 when the economy seemed to be growing considerably more rapidly by most measures.

One area that seems especially suspicious is restaurant employment. There was an imputation of 95,000 new jobs for the larger leisure and hospitality sector, which includes restaurants. The restaurant sector itself showed a gain of 25,000 jobs in April. Since the retail sales data from the Commerce Department show a nominal decline in sales of 0.1 percent from March to April, it seems implausible that the sector added 25,000 workers. Over the last year, restaurant sales are up by 4.9 percent in nominal terms, which translates into 1.6 percent real growth. (Inflation for food away from home is reported at 3.3 percent.) This seems hard to reconcile with the 336,400 jobs reportedly added to the sector, a gain of 3.6 percent.
Labels: economy

posted by Raymond Weber @ 4:40 PM

http://www.economicpolicymonitor.com/

[Demeter]

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