Jobs increase, unemployment lowest in 4 years

[lisab]

I could spend all day at the BLS playing with their graphs. What fun!

This one is interesting:

http://data.bls.gov/generated_files/graphics/LNS12300000_155313_1349552508105.gif

Series title: (Seas) Employment-Population Ratio
Labor force status: Employment-population ratio
Type of data: Percent or rate
Age: 16 years and over​

It's been ~29 years since we've had a worker to population ratio this low.
Also interesting is that before 1974, it was never this high.
Also interesting is that the maximum difference is less than 10%.

And comparing the above graph to the following:

http://data.bls.gov/generated_files/graphics/LNS14000000_157561_1349553601910.gif

Series title: (Seas) Unemployment Rate
Labor force status: Unemployment rate
Type of data: Percent or rate
Age: 16 years and over​

I've decided there are too many variables to process, and will just conclude that < 8% is a good thing.

Om, your graphs aren't showing for me. Anyone else having trouble with them?

 

[Evo]

I see them.

 

[lisab]

I see them.

Dang. I bet they're pretty.

 

[CAC1001]

The graphs aren't showing for me.

 

[CAC1001]

The republican party is a faith based party, and it's running a straight up anti-science campaign. If you think facts matter to them, please get real.

So is the Democratic party, they just have faith in different things. Both parties make fantastic sense and have great ideas in certain areas, but then are completely and totally nuts IMO with regards to other things.

 

[SHISHKABOB]

if you go to the site he linked you can find them

also that is a pretty cool site, graphs are fun

 

[OmCheeto]

Om, your graphs aren't showing for me. Anyone else having trouble with them?

I was worried about that. Poop.

I did check immediately after I posted to make sure they displayed. Apparently there's a timeout.

Stupid government sites...

Throw them all out!

 

[OmCheeto]

Ok. Fixed.

But...

did anyone notice the last 4 years in the graphs?

Down slope on the unemployment, with a zero change in workers vs population.

But then again, there was that graph from the Census Bureau...

There are about 72 million people thinking about retiring within the next few years.

 

[SixNein]

So is the Democratic party, they just have faith in different things. Both parties make fantastic sense and have great ideas in certain areas, but then are completely and totally nuts IMO with regards to other things.

The Republican party lost whatever credibility it had with me when it decided to become anti-scientific and deeply religious. It's so far to the right now that there doesn't exist any bridges. If unemployment numbers come out that disagree with their world view, the numbers must be wrong. If poll numbers disagree with their world view, the http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=AB9D0718-CC1E-443E-A1B3-EC87AEDA67F8.

 

[OmCheeto]

The Republican party lost whatever credibility it had with me when it decided to become anti-scientific and deeply religious. It's so far to the right now that there doesn't exist any bridges. If unemployment numbers come out that disagree with their world view, the numbers must be wrong. If poll numbers disagree with their world view, the http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=AB9D0718-CC1E-443E-A1B3-EC87AEDA67F8.

I think we are getting a bit off topic.

btw, I heard Rush Limbaugh's voice when I read that article.

----------------------------------
always good to hear a rich fat man grovel...
unacceptable language parsed over to FB.

 

[rootX]

So is the Democratic party, they just have faith in different things. Both parties make fantastic sense and have great ideas in certain areas, but then are completely and totally nuts IMO with regards to other things.

It will be interesting to have a thread about which party is more faith based or anti-scientific /nuts

 

[OmCheeto]

page saved. ok to delete.

oh wait, this is P&WA...

do I have any mentor friends/good acquaintances/not enemies that can delete this post?

/me pulls blankets over head...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmZdqsCW8vM

 

[Vanadium 50]

I don't know why I bother, since it's clear that most people on this thread are not interested in the facts. They care only if it's good for their "team" or not. I'm very disappointed. PF deserves better.

September ended a week ago. These numbers will get corrected several times before they are final (which can take as long as a year). The fact that the numbers reported last month are not consistent with each other is not at all uncommon. You just have to wait before taking these numbers seriously. It's not a conspiracy: it's simply too early to get accurate and stable numbers. Don't believe me? Look at how much these numbers change historically.

As far as not believing the polls, I used to do polling in college, and I can tell you that all polls are wrong. Every single one. I can change the outcome of a poll by asking the same questions in a different order, or even by having a different person administer it. (It's well known that female graduate students get a higher participation rate in polls than others) It's also well known that the pool of registered voters is not a good proxy for the pool of actual voters. Every single poll needs to correct for this somehow, and the methodology of the correction can easily be argued without being "anti-science".

A common way to do this is to ask the participant what his or her party affiliation is, and to adjust the samples to match the pollsters expectation of actual voters. This adjustment is necessary, but it's also somewhat subjective (for example, a common sampling this season is D+9, two points higher than 2008 and much higher than 2010. Is this right? Maybe, maybe not, but asking the question is surely not "unscientific")

 

[Evo]

If the numbers for September were bad, would anyone be complaining that they are subject to revision? They are always subject to revision, and the past few months were revised to show a much greater increase in new jobs than projected. This is how things have been done for years. If unemployment spikes up and looks really bad for October, I assume that the same people that are crying foul now will cry foul then?

Unemployment is on a downward trend, according to this (I don't agree any of this is better than reading sheeps entrails, IMO). Oh look, their prediction from last week, has been "updated" because it was wrong.

Unemployment Likely to Stay Around 7.8% for Six Months

However, the current level of 7.8% is sustainable, and there should be no increase in unemployment going forward. In fact, I now project the unemployment rate to be constant at 7.8% over the next six months.

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/up-front/posts/2012/10/05-jobs-forecast

Because this was their prediction last week -

The projection itself, made last Friday, isn’t particularly remarkable. An unemployment rate of 8.1% would represent no change from August, and is also the consensus forecast of economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires. Messrs. Barnichon and Nekarda also forecast a very gradual improvement in the months ahead: 8% in October and November, 7.9% in December, and an incremental drop to 7.1% over the course of the next year (although the authors caution in their paper that their projections become less accurate as they go further out in time).

Messrs. Barnichon and Nakarda’s model predicts that trend to reverse in coming months, with people gradually returning to the labor force, pushing the participation rate slowly but steadily upward. If they’re right, that means the unemployment rate will be falling for the “right” reasons: people actually finding jobs.

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2012/10/02/new-model-to-predict-unemployment-sees-rate-at-8-1/

Just to back up my point. Look at this headline and article from August based on the preliminary jobs report.

Joblessness May Undermine Obama Convention Bump

But for President Obama, the party was brought to an abrupt halt before Democrats were done breaking camp here Friday morning with the government’s release of its unemployment report for August, which showed that the economy added 96,000 jobs — fewer than expected — * and the unemployment rate dropped to 8.1 percent from 8.3 percent.

It was a blunt reminder of the forces working against him.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/07/u...ine-obama-convention-bump.html?pagewanted=all

Of course we know now that the numbers were much better than originally announced. Where was the outrage then?? hmmmmm, don't remember seeing any. So why would anyone suddenly get their knickers in a knot over the September numbers?

 

[CAC1001]

The Republican party lost whatever credibility it had with me when it decided to become anti-scientific and deeply religious. It's so far to the right now that there doesn't exist any bridges. If unemployment numbers come out that disagree with their world view, the numbers must be wrong. If poll numbers disagree with their world view, the http://dyn.politico.com/printstory.cfm?uuid=AB9D0718-CC1E-443E-A1B3-EC87AEDA67F8.

The Republican party is no more or less anti-science really than the Democratic party from what I've seen. The left accuses the Republican party of being anti-science in certain ways, while ignoring their own ways of being anti-science. As for being too right-wing, they're both highly partisan. I'd say the Republican party is rather far right-wing, but the Democratic party is too left-wing.

 

[mheslep]

I could spend all day at the BLS playing with their graphs. What fun!

This one is interesting:

...

Or just since 2004:

 

[Vanadium 50]

If the numbers were different, of course it's hard to predict who would be saying exactly what. However, I don't think it's likely that the President would be using this as a campaign issue (as he recently did in Fairfax) if the numbers were worse.

As far as numbers likely to change, here is what the White House itself said on November 4th, 2011: "The monthly employment and unemployment numbers are volatile and employment estimates are subject to substantial revision. There is no better example than August’s jobs figure, which was initially reported at zero and in the latest revision increased to 104,000. This illustrates why the Administration always stresses it is important not to read too much into anyone monthly report." Something more or less like this has appeared on the White House site approximately monthly since 2009. I'm a little surprised that agreeing with something that the White House has posted on their website a couple dozen times somehow makes me an anti-Obama partisan.

But don't take my word for it. Look at the history. See how often that there were disagreements in the week-old numbers (often), and see how often they changed over the next few months (often) and see how often the discrepancies were eventually resolved (pretty much always).

Note that I am not saying that the 7.8% number is too high or that it is too low. I am saying that it is in disagreement with the 110,000 number, that these disagreements are normally, and it usually takes a couple months to sort these things out.

 

[OmCheeto]

Or just since 2004:

Which is odd, because if you look at the data by 10 year age groups, all had net increases since January 2010.

The only oddballs in the set appear to be the 45-64 age group. They tended downward all the way to January 2011. Probably too stubborn to flip burgers.

Employment-Population Ratio

16-24

25-34

35-44

45-54

55-64

65+

(ref)

The last graph kind of puts a kink in my retiree theory. They've gone from 10% in the late 80's to around 17.5% of them working now. Though back in the 50's their numbers were around 25%.

You can also kind of interpolate when women started entering the work force from the long term graphs. In the 50's only about 65% of the prime age group worked. That jumped to around 80% for about the last 4 decades.

25-54

 

[SixNein]

The Republican party is no more or less anti-science really than the Democratic party from what I've seen. The left accuses the Republican party of being anti-science in certain ways, while ignoring their own ways of being anti-science. As for being too right-wing, they're both highly partisan. I'd say the Republican party is rather far right-wing, but the Democratic party is too left-wing.

The republican party has become way more anti-science because of its desire to purge moderates from the party. Rockefeller Republicans are becoming extinct, and they were the buffer against far right nonsense; as a result, the republican party is turning into some kind of religious-conservative party.

Anti-science has always been an issue in America throughout history. But in general, the movement has been weak, and it has been mostly on the fringes of either the far right or far left. But what we are seeing today is something altogether different. One can http://www.asanet.org/press/conservatives_trust_has_fallen.cfm it. And there has been nothing but a bombardment of bills to mess with science education in states around America from this group. My own state just recently passed such a bill. Some of the creationist museums are getting funding from states. So there is a significant anti-science movement growing in America that's gaining a great deal of support from conservatives in both parties. But republicans are building a platform out of it.

Basically, I think the hostility against poll numbers and unemployment numbers is born out of this growing anti-science movement.

 

[Astronuc]

The republican party has become way more anti-science because of its desire to purge moderates from the party. Rockefeller Republicans are becoming extinct, and they were the buffer against far right nonsense; as a result, the republican party is turning into some kind of religious-conservative party.

Anti-science has always been an issue in America throughout history. But in general, the movement has been weak, and it has been mostly on the fringes of either the far right or far left. But what we are seeing today is something altogether different. One can http://www.asanet.org/press/conservatives_trust_has_fallen.cfm it. And there has been nothing but a bombardment of bills to mess with science education in states around America from this group. My own state just recently passed such a bill. Some of the creationist museums are getting funding from states. So there is a significant anti-science movement growing in America that's gaining a great deal of support from conservatives in both parties. But republicans are building a platform out of it.

Basically, I think the hostility against poll numbers and unemployment numbers is born out of this growing anti-science movement.

That's some individuals who are members of the GOP.

Please stay on topic, which is the jobs/employment numbers.


Meanwhile - Officials reject conspiracies on unemployment rate - including a number of Republicans
http://news.yahoo.com/officials-reject-conspiracies-unemployment-rate-070150404--finance.html

 

[SixNein]

That's some individuals who are members of the GOP.

Please stay on topic, which is the jobs/employment numbers.


Meanwhile - Officials reject conspiracies on unemployment rate - including a number of Republicans
http://news.yahoo.com/officials-reject-conspiracies-unemployment-rate-070150404--finance.html

Mainstream GOP would be a better description. I'm not making arguments based upon outliers of the republican party. Their views reflect the 46% of Americans who believe the Earth is less than 10k years old, and the Majority of Republicans Are Creationists.

Quite frankly I think it adds context to the unemployment rate conspiracies and new found scrutiny about the numbers. The unemployment numbers disagreed with their world view, so they reject the unemployment numbers.

But I'll cease this route of argumentation.

 

[Pythagorean]

Their views don't reflect the 46%. A large fraction of democrats are in there too. But more importantly, what does it have to do with unemployment?

 

[SixNein]

Their views don't reflect the 46%. A large fraction of democrats are in there too. But more importantly, what does it have to do with unemployment?

Your right. I was following the skepticism and rejection of employment numbers rather then the OP.

-> back on topic...

 

[CAC1001]

The republican party has become way more anti-science because of its desire to purge moderates from the party. Rockefeller Republicans are becoming extinct, and they were the buffer against far right nonsense; as a result, the republican party is turning into some kind of religious-conservative party.

Anti-science has always been an issue in America throughout history. But in general, the movement has been weak, and it has been mostly on the fringes of either the far right or far left. But what we are seeing today is something altogether different. One can http://www.asanet.org/press/conservatives_trust_has_fallen.cfm it. And there has been nothing but a bombardment of bills to mess with science education in states around America from this group. My own state just recently passed such a bill. Some of the creationist museums are getting funding from states. So there is a significant anti-science movement growing in America that's gaining a great deal of support from conservatives in both parties. But republicans are building a platform out of it.

Basically, I think the hostility against poll numbers and unemployment numbers is born out of this growing anti-science movement.

While I agree with you about the anti-science aspects of Republicans, I guess we will have to agree to disagree on some of the other parts.

 

[Oltz]

I just want to point out that the 873,000 number would be the largest 1 month gain since June 1983 when the economy was actually rebounding and happens to put the total employment number just barely above what it was prior to Obama's inauguration.

By the way Evo criticizing the employment metric is not new and we always have it is not suddenly a bad metric now that it shows some improvement. I prefer the metrics that include underemployment and people of working age that are not disabled or incarcerated but not looking for work as a more accurate measure of employment status.

This is known as the U-6 category of unemployment statistics.

Go here and take a look http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t15.htm

This shows that nearly all the gains were part time jobs that people would work full time if they could but they are part time positions for economic reasons. So even if 873,00 people did find work the percent that are fully employed did not change.

This table shows 582,000 job gains as part time for economic reasons for September.

go to http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/surveymost?ln
and check the box for Persons At Work Part Time for Economic Reasons - LNS12032194

 

[OmCheeto]

You can also kind of interpolate when women started entering the work force from the long term graphs. In the 50's only about 65% of the prime age group worked. That jumped to around 80% for about the last 4 decades.

25-54

girls

Wow. You've come a long way babies.

and...

boys

hmmm... girls have been catching up for the last 60 years, but this latest recovery seems to be boy dominated.

Are girls less good at ditch digging, or just brighter?

 

[Astronuc]

Yet - The 'Real' Unemployment Rate Is Still Really Lousy
http://news.yahoo.com/real-unemployment-rate-still-really-lousy-211815397.html

 

[Evo]

Yet - The 'Real' Unemployment Rate Is Still Really Lousy
http://news.yahoo.com/real-unemployment-rate-still-really-lousy-211815397.html

Everything started tanking the beginning of 2008, during Bush's last year, and was already down to the current rate when Obama took office, Obama inherited a sinking ship. If we're going to blame the President for what happens with jobs, then we need to give credit for the good.

From your article

Romney and his fellow Republicans may blame Obama for this tattered portion of the work force, but it's not necessarily Obama's fault. Some economists think a growing wave of retirements among baby boomers account for part of the shift from full-time to part-time work. The twin revolutions of globalization and the advent of digital technology are also shaking up the workforce, regardless of who's in the White House.

The unemplyment rate was 5.0 in January 2008, it was 7.8 in January 2009 when Obama took office. Not Bush's fault, companies started laying off employees in unprecedented numbers, some due to mergers, some due to sending jobs offshore, and companies realizing they needed to get leaner to increase profits, IMO.

 

[mheslep]

...
boys

hmmm... girls have been catching up for the last 60 years, but this latest recovery seems to be boy dominated.

Are girls less good at ditch digging, or just brighter?

I'm fairly sure the decline in male-only employment-population ratio overwhelmingly comes from decline in the blue collar, trades work, per Murray's Coming Apart and the like. If there was an education level metric in the BLS data I think that would show up dramatically.

 

[BobG]

It's not the unemployment rate that's objectionable as a measurement - it's using a two-month snapshot of data to show motion.

Still, unemployment was 10% in Oct 2009 and it's had a slow, but steady decrease to 7.8% in 3 years. http://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/surveymost?ln (I doubt this will go directly to the unemployment rates, but you can click on unemployment rates and submit if it doesn't. Edit: in fact, it doesn't. You can't link directly to the output tables you select).

It also puts into perspective what 7.8% unemployment means. It's bad. Under 6% is good.

To put this into perspective, one could compare to the 1980 timeframe when Reagan inherited a bad economy from Carter. In May 1980, unemployment passed 7% in May 1980 and didn't drop below 7% until Jan 1986. The unemployment rate went above 8% in Nov 1981 and didn't drop below 8% until Jan 1984. Unemployment was above 9% from Mar 1982 to Sep 1983.

During the current job crises, unemployment passed 7% in Dec 2008 and still hasn't dropped back below 7%. But if drops below 7% sometime in 2014, then jobs will have recovered about as fast as they did under Reagan.

During the current job crises, unemployment passed 8% in Feb 2009 and didn't drop below 8% until Sep 2012. That's longer than it took under Reagan by quite a bit (43 months vs 26 months).

During the current, unemployment passed 9% in May 2009 and drop below 9% until Sep 2011 (28 months vs 18 months).

But it is two separate recessions with different causes and using only two examples doesn't make for a great example. But, if the economy had rebounded the same way as it did in the 80's, then Obama would have this election locked up, regardless of who the Republicans nominated (which is what I would have predicted back in 2009).

 

[Oltz]

The reason Obama gets some blame was that "stimulus" that we keep getting told worked was supposed to bring unemployment down to 5.5% by now and prevent it from going over 8 at all. From where I sit it looks like we borrowed Trillions from my daughters generation for nothing except campaign kick backs.

So you can't have it both ways it can not be BUsh's fault unless you say the stimulus was a failure and a mistake. If the stimulus worked in your eyes then the economy good and bad is on Obama.

Take your pick.

 

[OmCheeto]

I'm fairly sure the decline in male-only employment-population ratio overwhelmingly comes from decline in the blue collar, trades work, per Murray's Coming Apart and the like. If there was an education level metric in the BLS data I think that would show up dramatically.

There is.

But the data only goes back to 1992, and only for the 25+ demographic.

The comparison of Employment-population ratio to Unemployment rate over the last two years for men and women with Bachelors degrees or better is food for more research.

I'd post the graphs, but I'm late for work.

 

[OmCheeto]

There is.

But the data only goes back to 1992, and only for the 25+ demographic.

The comparison of Employment-population ratio to Unemployment rate over the last two years for men and women with Bachelors degrees or better is food for more research.

I'd post the graphs, but I'm late for work.

Gads! How can I be so busy?

I was discussing this thread with my bartender just 3 days ago, and he echoed the following:

http://news.yahoo.com/1-2-graduates-jobless-underemployed-140300522.html

He's a recently graduated chemist, and is now working, or should I say, volunteering, in a bio-research lab.

But anyways, the unemployment rate for BS+ edumatated people is pretty low.

I would recommend that recent college grads hang in there. The other numbers don't look quite that good.

 

[SixNein]

The reason Obama gets some blame was that "stimulus" that we keep getting told worked was supposed to bring unemployment down to 5.5% by now and prevent it from going over 8 at all. From where I sit it looks like we borrowed Trillions from my daughters generation for nothing except campaign kick backs.

So you can't have it both ways it can not be BUsh's fault unless you say the stimulus was a failure and a mistake. If the stimulus worked in your eyes then the economy good and bad is on Obama.

Take your pick.

The stimulus wasn't a mistake, and it did work. The problem was that state governments were hemorrhaging jobs through their austerity measures; as a result, the federal stimulus was neutralized.

 

[russ_watters]

...here's something you'll get first from me: I predict that next month either this blip gets corrected away or corrects itself via a -573,000 job creation month (giving a +150,00 average between the two) and unemployment goes back up to 8.1%.

The economy added 171,000 jobs in October, and unemployment inched up to 7.9%, from 7.8% in September, the Labor Department said Friday...

The number of positions added in August and September were revised sharply higher, adding a combined 84,000 more jobs than first thought.

http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/02/news/economy/october-jobs-report/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

So:
1. The August and September job creation numbers were revised up.
2. The October job creation number was higher than the September revised number.
3. Unemployment went up.

So unemployment didn't go up by as much as I predicted, but it did go up, despite what is actually a fairly decent job creation number and better numbers for the previous months.

Analysis to follow, but please don't hold back on giving me my props!