Posted on 03/11/2004 1:51:49 AM PST by sarcasm
It turns out that 2003 was tougher for job seekers than state officials had believed: Metro Atlanta ended the year with about 84,200 fewer jobs than first thought.
Instead of enjoying an increase of 67,900 jobs during the year — which appeared to make the area a national leader in job creation — metro Atlanta actually lost 16,800 jobs, the Georgia Labor Department said Wednesday.
The drastically different numbers came as part of the department's routine revision of initial job data. Such revisions, while common, typically aren't so severe.
So what happened this time? And what does the revised data say about the true health of the job market?
One reason for the huge swing is that many companies that had gone out of business weren't counted in the initial survey, said John Lawrence, assistant director of work force information and analysis for the state Labor Department.
"The numbers can get a little weird when the economy is in flux, as it has been," he said.
For job seekers, the rosier picture had seemed wrong all along.
"Every time I went down to the unemployment office, everybody was just short of tears,"said Elisha Naylor, 29, of Decatur, jobless since her boyfriend's restaurant failed last summer. "I have never known so many people who are unemployed."
The data revision resolves some contradictions.
Atlanta's apparent job growth had put it among the nation's leaders, yet other indicators — like income growth, commercial real estate vacancies and tax collections — had lagged.
So the revised numbers on jobs make a kind of grim sense, said Rajeev Dhawan, director of the economic forecasting center at Georgia State University in Atlanta.
"Read 'em and weep," he said Wednesday. "There have been no job gains in the last two years."
The most recent update shows Georgia starting 2003 with 3,903,300 jobs and ending the year with 3,899,800. Metro Atlanta came into last year with 2,196,100 jobs and twelve months later had 2,179,300. Even the revised numbers will be revised one more time. A significant change is unlikely — but then again, officials were surprised by the size of the downward revision reported Wednesday.
Loss is widespread
In the original report, Atlanta carried the rest of the state, as the metro area's job growth compensated for losses elsewhere. But the new numbers show both the state and the metro area losing jobs. The first estimate had Georgia gaining 63,200 jobs during the year. The revision has payrolls in the state down by 3,500 jobs.
"The big job losses are over," Dhawan said. "It's job creation we're waiting for."
Each month, surveys by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of employers provide a snapshot of payrolls. The sampling is used to estimate what is going on in the larger economy.
As the year goes on, more complete information comes from filings with the unemployment insurance system, said Lawrence.
"It is accurate, but there's a lag," he said. "So we do monthly estimates based on survey data from the BLS."
Differing strains of data are hardly noticed when the economy is roaring forward — or collapsing. But the sputtering job machine of recent months has spun off confusing signals. The nation's economy has been growing since November 2001, yet job creation has been anemic at best.
Some stop looking
Nationally, the unemployment rate has drifted down to 5.6 percent — not traditionally seen as painfully high. Recessions two decades ago produced jobless rates nearly twice as high.
But this time, millions of Americans have slipped out of the labor force — and are no longer counted as unemployed.
And for workers who are officially unemployed, the average search for a job is near record levels. About 2 million job seekers have been looking for more than six months.
The nation has lost about 2.4 million jobs since the recession began in early 2001. More than 150,000 new jobs per month are needed to soak up the pool of the unemployed. For months, some economists have predicted a solid surge of job creation.
Job growth started again last summer, but has averaged a meager 61,000 jobs per month. And in February, payrolls grew a paltry 21,000 jobs — while revisions further trimmed estimates for previous months. But until now, Atlanta was rocking along as one of the nation's success stories — or so the data indicated.
If state officials were fooled by the appearance of job growth, many Georgians in need of a job were not.
Take Steve Eisenberg of Chamblee, for example.
Laid off as a project manager at Disney Co. in early 2001, the New York native ran his own business for a time, then couldn't make it there. He had heard the Atlanta economy was bouncing back faster than the Big Apple's.
"I came here in September," he said, "and I am still looking."
What total bullshit! The ones who "stop looking" either got welfare, sold some dope, or somehow came into enough money to pay some bills for a while.
They still need to eat NEXT month - so it's either more welfare, sell more dope or find something. I've been out of work many times, but I could never afford to "stop looking"!
Opportunities are out there. You just have to find them.
Mortgaged the house, sold the boat, cashed in th Treasury notes they were holding, etc. When this cash runs out Kerry nor Bush will be there for them.
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