In the continuing theater of BLS absurdities, the unemployment rate fell to 9.7% in spite of a 25th consecutive month of job losses. Some stopped counting at 22 months in November. However, I find November questionable.



This month professional services contributed 44,00 jobs to the plus side, but 52,000 of them were part-time jobs. Amazingly a table below shows the number of part-time workers decreased by 849,000 from last month. Go figure.



Moreover, the so-called 64,000 rise in November can be attributed to the seasonally adjusted hiring of 94,000 temporary workers. Here is a look at revisions ....



BLS Revisions







Household Revisions



The above table does not affect the unemployment rate. Revisions to the Household Survey do. Here are the household revisions.







Bingo. Just like that the population shrank as did the civilian labor force.



For some reason the BLS does this in pieces. The following chart shows the result.







There are now a whopping 2.5 million people without a job but want one, yet are not counted as unemployed.



So yes, the "official unemployment rate" can hold its own or even drop with this kind of nonsense.



Now for a closer look at the report ....



This morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the January 2010 Employment Report.



The unemployment rate fell from 10.0 to 9.7 percent in January, and nonfarm payroll employment was essentially unchanged (-20,000), the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment fell in construction and in transportation and warehousing, while temporary help services and retail trade added jobs..









Establishment Data







click on chart for sharper image



Highlights





20,000 jobs were lost in total vs. 150,000 jobs last month.

75,000 construction jobs were lost vs. 32,000 last month.

11,000 manufacturing jobs were added vs. 23,000 lost last month.

vs. 23,000 last month. 48,000 service providing jobs were added vs. 69,000 lost last month.

vs. 69,000 last month. 42,000 retail trade jobs were added vs. 18,000 lost last month.

vs. 18,000 last month. 44,000 professional and business services jobs were added vs. 20,000 last month.

vs. 20,000 last month. 16,000 education and health services jobs were added vs. 26,000 last month.

vs. 26,000 last month. 14,000 leisure and hospitality jobs were lost vs. 41,000 last month.

8,000 government jobs were lost vs. 27,000 last month.

52,000 temporary help jobs were added vs 58,000 last month and a whopping 94,000 in November.







November added 94,000 temporary jobs seasonally adjusted. Even if true it is hardly anything to crow about but it does explain the positive job growth in November.

A total of 60,000 goods producing jobs were lost (higher paying jobs).

Index of Aggregate Weekly Hours

Birth Death Model Revisions 2009





Birth Death Model Revisions 2009

Birth/Death Model Revisions

BLS Black Box

The net birth/death model component figures are unique to each month and exhibit a seasonal pattern that can result in negative adjustments in some months. These models do not attempt to correct for any other potential error sources in the CES estimates such as sampling error or design limitations.

Note that the net birth/death figures are not seasonally adjusted, and are applied to not seasonally adjusted monthly employment links to determine the final estimate.

The most significant potential drawback to this or any model-based approach is that time series modeling assumes a predictable continuation of historical patterns and relationships and therefore is likely to have some difficulty producing reliable estimates at economic turning points or during periods when there are sudden changes in trend.

Household Data

In January, the number of unemployed persons decreased to 14.8 million, and the unemployment rate fell by 0.3 percentage point to 9.7 percent.



The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) continued to trend up in January, reaching 6.3 million. Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of longterm unemployed has risen by 5.0 million.



In January, the civilian labor force participation rate was little changed at 64.7 percent. The employment-population ratio rose from 58.2 to 58.4 percent.



The number of persons who worked part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) fell from 9.2 to 8.3 million in January. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job.



Persons Not in the Labor Force



About 2.5 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force in January, an increase of 409,000 from a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.



Among the marginally attached, there were 1.1 million discouraged workers in January, up from 734,000 a year earlier. (The data are not seasonally adjusted.) Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them. The remaining 1.5 million people marginally attached to the labor force had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey for reasons such as school attendance or family responsibilities.

Table A-8 Part Time Status

Regardless, there are still millions of workers whose hours will rise before companies start hiring more workers.

Table A-15

Grim Statistics