in a live debate with a friend about the 308,000 jobs in March

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

weren't most of them part-time? And weren't a lot of them due to good weather boosting construction jobs and a grocery store strike ending in CA?

Aren't construction and retail flaky job markets? (No offense! LOL!)

How much of a difference does one month of jobs make?

Any help? I saw some posts here about it but I cannot find them now!

Thanks!

[Another Bill C.]

1. Follow this thread!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1337573

[alcuno]

2. I don't have the numbers but one of the things I'm hearing is that

something like 80% were part-time jobs. The CA grocery workers went back to work and that accounted for around 50,000 jobs. Check the LBN archives from Friday; I know there was a long thread on the jobs report.

[lastknowngood]

3. urbansurvival.com will give you a good look

the end of the cali. food store strike added 90,000 so there are bogus numbers.

[Sulldogg]

4. my question is

were those 90,000 jobs put on the lost jobs number before?

[skeptic9]

5. Why not start with the official seasonally-adjusted numbers,...

... from http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/empsit.pdf

These numbers are spun EVERY month. Whenever the two separate sources of monthly labor market data (household surveys and establishment data) diverge in their findings, we're completely inside a spin zone.

Notice how the household survey shows a DECLINE of 3,000 jobs from February to March! How many media spinners mentioned THAT? Before Friday, Larry Kudlow of CNBC kept repeating a mantra that only the household numbers are credible. Now you don't hear a peep from him.

Table A. Major indicators of labor market activity, seasonally adjusted (Numbers in thousands)
......................................Feb....... Mar....... change

HOUSEHOLD DATA Labor force status
Civilian labor force..........146,471....146,650......179
Employment.....................138,301....138,298...... -3
Unemployment....................8,170......8,352......182

ESTABLISHMENT DATA
Nonfarm employment.......... p130,240.. p130,548......p308
Average hourly earnings..........p$15.52....p$15.54....p$0.02
Average weekly earnings.........p524.58....p523.70....p -.88

p=preliminary


HOUSEHOLD DATA
Table A-5. Employed persons by class of worker and part-time status (In thousands) Seasonally adjusted
...................................................Feb. 2004..Mar. 2004
PERSONS AT WORK PART TIME
All industries
Part time for economic reasons .......... 4,437 .... 4,733
Slack work or business conditions ..... 2,865 .... 3,011
Could only find part-time work ......... 1,347 .... 1,427

[Sulldogg]

6. I think

the main point is that both surveys are outdated, and need to be revised to better reflect the current economy. I'm not sure how to do that as I am not an economist, but the fact that these reports are so unstable and differeing leaves me no re-assurance of their worth.

[skeptic9]

7. No measurement method is perfect. But, if two separate ...

... methods show trends in the same direction, you can have some confidence that the trend is up or the trend is down.

One set of monthly measurements that do not agree should not inspire much confidence.

Many economists use moving averages of the last three measurements to smooth out unreliable jumps like the one this month in establishment jobs. It will take at least two months (until June 4th) for those economists to tell us whether this apparent uptick is genuine or not. Both household and establishment average changes over March, April, and May will have to agree to have confidence there's an uptrend.