Replies

Does anyone know how newly retired people are figured into the survey? Since the first of the baby boomers reach early retireent age of 58, could it be that some of those people who are no longer looking for jobs might be doing so because they have just retired?

I also noticed while reading the details of the report that the BLS has changed the way it figures "seasonal adjustment" from revising it semi-annually to revising it monthly. This is the first month that it has done that. Could it be that thier adjustment factors might be a little off? (especially if they factored in the November numbers which were high)

Finally, how does the illegal immigrant play into the numbers? If an illegal goes to work, does that count as a new job or is it just ignored? What happens to the jobs data when all those illegals become legal? Does our employment numbers suddenly rise by 5 million?

I think what you are asking questions about, gets' to the fundamental nature of these reports and the number attributed to them. We keep hearing that jobs are 2.3 percent, or 0.1 percent and so forth. But I suspect that if you had a few moments to talk to the people who are, and who have in the past, produced these numbers, that they would say that there are great unknowns and that these numbers are logical attempt to describe economic activity, over a long period of time, and that any one number in its self isn't all that useful. Couple this with what is being said with this number usually reported every three months or so, and now every month. As an example, picture a speedometer with a failing cable to the transmission. If you ever had an old klunker, you would of seen that sometimes the needle wouldn't get off zero, until you were doing 15mph. So, somewhere out there is the reality. What is reported is the sticky, floppy speedometer needle, accurate to plus or minus 15mph. They really should put these numbers out with a reasonable =/- error range.

I doubt, other than academic, there are any useful numbers on illegals and retired persons.

I just do not know but I do think that every President has changed how workers were counted to fit the results they wanted or to make them look better. Seems to me some one has always been yelling about that. My own belief is look at the cars being taken back and bankrupted people and numbers. For the life of me I can not believe that people working under the table can help any of us.

If an illegal goes to work, does that count as a new job or is it just ignored?

It seems like that would depend --- some of those illegals are dealing in stolen identity documents and taking official jobs that I think would be counted, some of the agricultural jobs maybe aren't being counted, or contract labor where there is a job but it's probably not counted. In some of those they use a mixture of legal and illegal labor --- it probably appears that the employees are extremely productive but there are illegals doing a lot of the work.