Beware of the phantom: ‘New jobs’ hoax

New York Post ^ | 05/06/2015 | John Crudele

[SeekAndFind]

Get ready for another ride on the economic roller coaster.

Last week, we got bad news about the economy when it was announced that the US gross domestic product barely rose in the first three months of 2015.

And it looks as though the 0.2 percent annualized growth reported by the Commerce Department for the winter months will turn into a contraction when revisions are made at the end of May.

Worse, GDP in the second quarter hasn’t gotten much better. The Atlanta Federal Reserve’s GDPNow, which tracks the economy in real time, has GDP growing at a wimpy 0.8 percent annual rate in the second quarter. So the economy is doing poorly, right? Right — but you might not believe that in a few days. Why not? Well, hop aboard the roller coaster.

This Friday, the Labor Department will announce job growth and the unemployment rate for April and — drum roll, please — it probably won’t look as ugly as the GDP.

That’s because Labor uses trick statistics when it gives a picture of the springtime job market.

Each spring, Labor starts adding phantom jobs to its count — jobs they guess have been created but can’t prove have been created.

Some of that phantom spirit is tied to the weather. No, really. At Labor, good weather = the birth of companies = more jobs.

And even in this day and age of instantaneous knowledge of everything, Labor still guesses at how many jobs these newly born companies are generating. When it reports April employment numbers this Friday at 8:30 a.m., Labor will include about 263,000 phantom jobs.

[skeeter]

The state run media does not care for the truth.

[grania]

I don’t understand why there isn’t a demand from honest economists for raw data without adjustments for seasons, etc. All of these adjusted numbers are a wall keeping us from what’s real.