On a day when the Fed will likely overshadow everything with unearned attentiveness, the BLS released its annual benchmark for the Establishment Survey. Actually, it was just the preliminary estimate for the coming benchmark revision, which was curiously downward. It bears repeated that the BLS does not estimate the total count of either employed persons or payrolls but rather each [...]
Productivity estimates were better in Q2 than certainly Q1, even revised, but that still doesn’t change the clear disassociation between the BLS’s version of the economy and the BEA’s. That disparity becomes even messier as the BEA’s last benchmark revision sawed off significant “output” dating back to the now-recognized 2012 slowdown. In tandem, the BLS only revised hours worked (back [...]
The latest updates for the JOLTS showed that job openings in April surged to a new series high. Jumping by 267k (seasonally adjusted), the trend in job openings is being used as confirmation that there must be some robust underlying trend in overall payrolls despite the ubiquitous slump everywhere else. In other words, this is another series from the BLS [...]
It makes a very interesting contrast, to start the week under cloud of suspicion only to end it with its reverse. Economic data was routinely awful earlier, though for the most part financial markets are moved more by how that might make Janet Yellen feel than anything of a fundamental basis for all those prices. Typically, the ISM surveys are [...]
Since Q1 GDP was revised lower by almost 1% that meant estimates of productivity were going to be even more out of alignment than they were at the first release. Of course, in a less massaged environment productivity might have preserved some sense if there was less rigidity from the BLS on the employment side. In other words, when “output” [...]
When the BLS models payroll expansion they don’t actually count payroll expansion. In the 1960’s, economic accounting shifted to mostly stochastic processes which changed the way mainstream economic statistics were calculated and kept. We all know, particularly recently, about how these data series are constantly revised, and often by more than minor adjustments, but that in some ways obscures the [...]
Along with this morning’s atrocious retail sales report comes more bad news for economic statistics that have been at least clinging to the recovery narrative. My biggest complaint with the Establishment Survey is that I believe the BLS in constructing their measure of variability has been overly optimistic in its trend-cycle component. In the 1960’s and especially the 1970’s, economic [...]
The problem with the employment report is not just about how it is calculated but more so that it is taken as the definitive measure of economic performance. The notion itself, conceptually at least, isn’t assaultive as the modern economy is entirely about the division of labor and specialization, so anything that deals in that subject matter is already in [...]
Payroll Friday lived up to its recent billing, offering those who see the economy as booming their headlines while providing nothing beyond that by which to confirm it. There is maybe a growing sense, given market action (especially bonds), that the headlines are becoming less “moving” and that this disparity has been internalized more so than at any time in [...]
The latest August figures for the JOLTS companion to the payroll climate continue to raise the possibility of statistical corruptions. Back in June, the level of job openings suddenly and very sharply spiked upward. That was used as confirmation of the ongoing surge in employment, but without attribution as to how closely job openings relate to payroll indications through the [...]
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