The conclusions of this report state:
ConclusionMy summary of this:The payroll survey may be systematically undercounting job growth, creating an unprecedented job growth gap between its total employment measure and the household survey's. In the past six months, the BLS has approved new techniques to smooth the household survey's measure of total employment in order to make month-to-month comparisons. Analysts can now point with confidence to the employment of a record number of Americans as of January 2004 and the employment of an additional 2.2 million workers since the recession ended.
Why has the payroll survey missed so much recent job creation? The BLS is skeptical of the start-up explanation, and recent benchmarks confirm the BLS's position. Self-employment is a different matter, and the latest statement by the BLS commissioner confirms the appearance of a new class of contractors. The evolution of the workforce--specifically, the demographic emergence of consultants and contractors who do not consider themselves self-employed--is a likely wedge between the surveys. Self-employment has grown by over 600,000 in two years, and misidentification by the LLC and consulting workforce implies a much higher number.
Finally, a new hypothesis quantified in this report is that decelerating turnover is artificially deflating company payrolls, creating an illusion of 1 million jobs lost since 2001. The heightened insecurity since September 11, the Iraq war, and the specter of outsourcing are logical explanations for reduced turnover. Here again, innovative new data series on employment dynamics from the BLS allow economists to confirm this hypothesis.
Policymakers and analysts should treat payroll data with caution when making comparisons to employment levels in 2001 and earlier years. Contrary to the conventional wisdom, the best measure of job growth now comes from smoothed total employment reported in the household survey. Consequently, policies aimed at protecting illusory lost jobs are ill-advised. Employment in America is rebounding strongly, and the increasing dynamism of U.S. job markets should not be clogged by misguided and misinformed cures.
It concludes:
The economy has added more than 1.5 million payroll jobs over the past year and nearly 2 million jobs on the household survey. Most indicators point towards continued growth. Output is booming, the manufacturing outlook is positive, business confidence is high, and productivity continues to set records. Even such favorites among economic pessimists like data on long-term unemployment, manufacturing employment, and worker discouragement are showing marked improvement. Unfortunately for the pessimists, these are the facts that frame the debate on the economy today.
I firmly believe that in just a few years the payroll survey will be considered about as reliable as reading chicken entrails. My Econ prof already has ditched it, and he's left of center.