Horrid Job Number Coming ( What will the figures prove ?)

New York Times Financial Blog ^ | 02/23/2010 | Floyd Norris

[SeekAndFind]

It snowed this month in much of the United States. And that may create unnecessary fears that a double-dip recession is upon us.

Why?

The Labor Department employment report to be released on March 5 will say that it is for February, but the fine print will say it is for a particular week. Both the household survey (which produces the unemployment rate) and the employer survey (which produces the job count) ask about workers in the week during which the 12th of the month fell.

For February, that was the week of the 7th to the 13th. There were blizzards on the East Coast the previous weekend, and again during the week.

That means that a lot of people who had jobs may report they did not work during the week, and companies may say they had fewer people on the payroll than they would have cited a week earlier or later. If so, we may get a truly horrid job number.

[perfect_rovian_storm]

We lost 8 million jobs last week alone, which brings the unemployment number to 4%.

[TonyInOhio]

[Bitsy]

That America is being RULED by a bunch of jugheads! It’s the economy stupid! Fix it!

[Plutarch]

The NYT's desperate spin on this gives new meaning to the term snow job.

[Drango]

0bamas fault!

[SeekAndFind]

We lost 8 million jobs last week alone, which brings the unemployment number to 4%.

Are you using ObamaMath ?

[JIM O]

Obviously if Bush had listened to Gore we would not have had a weather problem. Obama inherited the blizzard.

[null and void]

The NYT's desperate spin on this gives new meaning to the term snow job.

Post of the day.

[Cicero]

It’s not Obama’s fault! If Bush hadn’t burned all that oil and coal, Global Warming wouldn’t be bringing us all this snow!

[LuvFreeRepublic]

Yes the post of the day was pretty good, so was the revelation that BO inherited the blizzard.

[AngelesCrestHighway]

[r9etb]

What will the figures prove?

They'll prove that you can't trust any predictions about employment numbers, whether from "analysts" or politicians. And I think it also proves that you really can't even trust the numbers themselves, as they've been all over the place for the past several months.

[BookmanTheJanitor]

We lost 8 million jobs last week alone, which brings the unemployment number to 4%.

Ha ha... :o)

[LibLieSlayer]

Lies from da*ned liars.

LLS

[Carley]

They have been lying all along. Now it behooves them to demand MORE spending because unemployment is so high.

Anyone here falling for their crappola?

[Buckeye McFrog]

you knew that 9.7% number was thoroughly cooked baloney meant to break Barry’s fall in the polls. They will have to correct for it somewhere along the line.

[egannacht]

"It snowed this month in much of the United States. And that may create unnecessary fears that a double-dip recession is upon us."

Jayson Blair is back on the job at the NY Times. Seems to me it's a pre-emptive on the false labor numbers from last month. Snow never made people lose massive # of jobs in the past why is weather the cause for so much unemployment and fears now? Answer is that this is BS story. Welcome back Jayson Pinch Blair, nice seeing you still have the knack for bullsh!t

[Arrowhead1952]

Does that mean that a lot of men will be beating their wives?

[Touch Not the Cat]

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