[paudio]

The monthly jobs figures are based on models and have huge estimated components to them. Whenever they do actual surveys and try of count the millions of new jobs, they have trouble finding them.

As far as I remember, the data is based on survey, as they do survey every month (like Current Population Surveys, etc.) As it is a survey, not census, they don't try to "find all people" in gathering the data. Based on sampling design, etc., they estimate the numbers for national figure, using some statistical model. But this is how survey works. I believe they have been doing the same thing since early 1960s quite consistently. This is a quote from BLS website:

Each month the Current Employment Statistics (CES) program surveys about 160,000 businesses and government agencies, representing approximately 400,000 individual worksites, in order to provide detailed industry data on employment, hours, and earnings of workers on nonfarm payrolls.

[Dialup Llama]

As far as I remember, the data is based on survey, as they do survey every month (like Current Population Surveys, etc.)

The basis is a survey. But they have this nasty birth/ death model they throw in there. They assume that when a bunch of people get laid off some of them will suddenly start a business which will not be visible to the survey.

However there are much larger surveys. When these come out, the BLS tries to reconcile its monthly figures. This is often done in Jan.

In any month, much of the jobs growth is due to the factor supplied by this model. Many people look at this stat suspiciously.