US unemployment goes down .4%....who cares.

[Thunder]

Unemployment this quarter when from 9.8% to 9.4%..wonderful huh?

Not really, since a drop in unemployment may have NOTHING to do with those people getting jobs...let alone full-time jobs.

WTF do they include such stupid stats as part of the unemployment rate?

 

[daenku32]

So how should they report the .4% drop?

 

[Denver]

It doesn't seem very significant. But, if unemployment were 4%, and it dropped .4%, that would sound more important. And yet, that .4% of the population is the same number in both cases.

It's true that you can't judge the job situation solely on this number, since it often measures the number of people applying or on unemployment, and can drop not only because more people got jobs, or kept their jobs, but also ran out of benefits and dropped off the list.

But it is one number, as good as many others. I don't think they should suppress any data.

 

[Thunder]

The Department of Labor has decent numbers of how many employable people there are in the USA. The unemployment rate should simply reflect what percent of them have a full-time job.

 

[A Laughing Baby]

Not really, since a drop in unemployment may have NOTHING to do with those people getting jobs...let alone full-time jobs.

103,000 new payroll additions is a stupid stat to add to an unemployment report? It has nothing to do with people getting jobs?

Do you even know what goes into the BLS report on the unemployment rate? Here's the link if you don't.

ETA:

The Department of Labor has decent numbers of how many employable people there are in the USA. The unemployment rate should simply reflect what percent of them have a full-time job.

Why should only full time jobs count? Does the (part-time) janitor who's worked at my office building for 10 years not count as employed? That's ridiculous and just a bit classist.


And one noteworthy quote from the BLS:

Receiving benefits from the Unemployment Insurance (UI) program has no bearing on whether a person is classified as unemployed.

 

[casebro]

"Employment rate" ?

As an employer, I had to inform the state of my numbers. I suspect that it is possible to tally those forms all up, and give the total number of bona-fide jobs.

But hmmmm, they already do that, or how could they get the percent of UN-employed? So just a bit more looking ought to get those stats, which are probably already being tracked...

 

[WildCat]

It doesn't seem very significant. But, if unemployment were 4%, and it dropped .4%, that would sound more important. And yet, that .4% of the population is the same number in both cases.

Maybe, maybe not. Unemployment figures don't count people who gave up looking for work, for example. So unemployment can go up or down, even though no jobs were gained or lost and assuming the population was static.

 

[A Laughing Baby]

103,000 new additions to payroll.

 

[WildCat]

103,000 new additions to payroll.

You think that's good news? It needs to be much higher than that to make a dent in the unemployment numbers, all other things being equal.

This is more telling as to the drop in December's unemployment rate:

The unemployment rate fell to 9.4 percent last month from 9.8 percent, its lowest rate since July 2009, the department said in its monthly report. But the figures also showed that the civilian labor force declined by 260,000 in December, as many Americans stopped applying for jobs.

“It is certainly a disappointment,” said Dan Greenhaus, the chief economic strategist for Miller Tabak & Company of the report. “The drop was more attributed to a decline in the number of unemployed people, rather than an increase in the number of employed people. There was not a surge in employment.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/08/business/economy/08jobs.html

Unemployment dropped not because people were finding jobs, but because they gave up on looking for jobs.

 

[A Laughing Baby]

You think that's good news? It needs to be much higher than that to make a dent in the unemployment numbers, all other things being equal.

Are you saying it's not? You also understand how incredibly unlikely it is that the economy will magically add a million jobs in a month to cut the unemployment rate by a staggering amount?

I do agree though that the structural unemployment calculation leaves something to be desired, as your article pointed out. (Not arguing here, honeslty asking your opinion) Do you think that they calculate it in the 4-month fashion that they do for political reasons -- i.e. it keeps the rate artificially lower and looks better-- or do you think it's an arbitrary date setting?

 

[WildCat]

Are you saying it's not? You also understand how incredibly unlikely it is that the economy will magically add a million jobs in a month to cut the unemployment rate by a staggering amount?

I do agree though that the structural unemployment calculation leaves something to be desired, as your article pointed out. (Not arguing here, honeslty asking your opinion) Do you think that they calculate it in the 4-month fashion that they do for political reasons -- i.e. it keeps the rate artificially lower and looks better-- or do you think it's an arbitrary date setting?

I don't think it's done for political reasons. It's the nature of the beast, you can only measure the numbers you have. If there's a better metric somewhere I haven't seen it.

Politics come in from spinning these numbers.

 

[A Laughing Baby]

I don't think it's done for political reasons. It's the nature of the beast, you can only measure the numbers you have. If there's a better metric somewhere I haven't seen it.

Politics come in from spinning these numbers.

That last bit is especially true. I do have to say, of all the people I end up disagreeing with in here, I enjoy disagreeing with you the most, because you have actual basis and support for your opinions and are always willing to back them up. That's a lot more than can be said for a lot of people in here.


edit: THATS RIGHT YOU BASTARDS IM TALKING ABOUT YOU. YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE *points finger meaningfully*

 

[Thunder]

103,000 new additions to payroll.

the .4% drop is a lot more than 103,000 people. the rest of the folks simply stopped looking for work.

 

[A Laughing Baby]

the .4% drop is a lot more than 103,000 people. the rest of the folks simply stopped looking for work.

Right, and I've addressed that. That's absolutely correct. But 103,000 additions to payroll cannot possibly be construed as a bad thing. You could argue it's not enough of a good thing, not as dramatic a good thing as you had hoped, but it is an objectively good thing.

 

[DavidJames]

Right, and I've addressed that. That's absolutely correct. But 103,000 additions to payroll cannot possibly be construed as a bad thing. You could argue it's not enough of a good thing, not as dramatic a good thing as you had hoped, but it is an objectively good thing.

Well said. I think there is a fallacy involved here, I'm not sure what the official name is but I call it the fallacy of I don't like something about all this and since what's presented is not perfect I'll simply wave it away with a swoosh of my hand.

I see this all the time with things like arms control, reducing pollution and environmental controls, gun control.

 

[Thunder]

Right, and I've addressed that. That's absolutely correct. But 103,000 additions to payroll cannot possibly be construed as a bad thing. You could argue it's not enough of a good thing, not as dramatic a good thing as you had hoped, but it is an objectively good thing.

are these full-time jobs?


I'd also like to see the Department of Labor start rating jobs. A full-time job at Walmart is NOT the same thing as a full-time job with benefits and a pension, at Google or Microsoft.

for example:

full-time job with full benefits (vacation time, sick time, 401k/pension) = rating A
full-time job with some benefits (vacation time & 401k)= rating B
full-time job with no benefits= rating C

thoughts?

 

[A Laughing Baby]

are these full-time jobs?


I'd also like to see the Department of Labor start rating jobs. A full-time job at Walmart is NOT the same thing as a full-time job with benefits and a pension, at Google or Microsoft.

for example:

full-time job with full benefits (vacation time, sick time, 401k/pension) = rating A
full-time job with some benefits (vacation time & 401k)= rating B
full-time job with no benefits= rating C

thoughts?

Again, why are only full-time jobs the ones that count? Like I said, the janitor who cleans my floor of my office building (I talk to him sometimes since I work 9-6 to avoid traffic) and both of the awesome people at our lunch counter are part time jobs who have been working them for years now. Do they not count as real jobs?

 

[Thunder]

Again, why are only full-time jobs the ones that count? Like I said, the janitor who cleans my floor of my office building (I talk to him sometimes since I work 9-6 to avoid traffic) and both of the awesome people at our lunch counter are part time jobs who have been working them for years now. Do they not count as real jobs?

I'm sure I'm not the only person out there who thinks full-time jobs with fulle benefits, let alone some benefits, are MUCH better than part-time jobs with no benefits.

Do you truly believe that a part-time job with no benefits is equal in value to a full-time job with full benefits?

 

[A Laughing Baby]

I'm sure I'm not the only person out there who thinks full-time jobs with fulle benefits, let alone some benefits, are MUCH better than part-time jobs with no benefits.

Do you truly believe that a part-time job with no benefits is equal in value to a full-time job with full benefits?

Of course not, that's absurd. But at the same time, you can't say that only full-time jobs count. That would discount an incredible proportion of our economy. All of a sudden, nearly everyone that works in a restaurant, custodial services, some farm workers, etc. Wouldn't have real jobs. Why should they not count as being employed? Simply because someone else's job is better?

 

[TraneWreck]

Slight improvements are almost the worst possible news.

If the numbers were improving dramatically, obviously that's good, but if they were getting worse, we might be able to convince someone to do something about this mess.

Slight improvements allow politicians to do their, "We're on the track to recovery," nonsense (yes, Obama is currently the worst offender), even though this is the major short-term issue in America.

It's not complicated: we've had a crash in aggregate demand. In order to hasten the economy's recovery, we need to allocate funds to people who currently are not spending. The BEST way to do that is with a jobs program--people are working, they spend money, that money allows businesses to hire more people to meet the new demand, those people spend money...etc.

But, of course, the oh-so-sacred deficit cannot be harmed with such a program. $800 billion in tax cuts against the deficit, however, is cool.