Do you know if unemployment rates in Florida from Charley would have been figured into this month's statistic?
If so, the number is better than it appears.
---------------------------------------------------------------------- | Hurricane Charley |
| |
| Hurricane Charley struck Florida during the August survey refer- |
| ence period. BLS made additional data collection efforts for the |
| hurricane-affected counties to ensure that payroll survey response |
| rates were at normal levels. Our examination of the survey data |
| suggests that there were no discernable weather-related effects on |
| national payroll employment as measured by the establishment survey. |
| This was likely due to the fact that the storm hit late in the re- |
| porting period for most of our survey respondents. For the storm |
| to have affected payroll employment, people would have had to have |
| been off work for the entire pay period and not paid for the time |
| missed. (In the household survey, people who miss work for weath- |
| er-related events are counted as employed whether or not they are |
| paid for the time off.) |
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