Record Winter to Distort Key Jobs Report Next Week

CNBC ^ | 2-26-10 | John Melloy

[Calif Conservative]

Record Winter to Distort Key Jobs Report Next Week

Friday, 26 Feb 2010 | 4:01 PM ET

By: John Melloy Executive Producer, Fast Money

The winter conditions will hurt visibility for Wall Street traders even after their commute home today is over. The nearly unprecedented winter conditions the Northeast region and really the whole country has seen this past month could distort the biggest market-moving event of next week: the jobs report.

“For Friday’s employment report, we are projecting nonfarm payrolls to decline by 75,000, although the risk is for an even weaker number since there were two major winter storms (Feb 4-6 and Feb 9-10) during the employment survey week,” wrote Joe Lavorgna, chief U.S. economist for Deutsche Bank, in a note to clients entitled “Do not be swayed by the February payroll chill.”

[Calif Conservative]

Snow in January and February. Unexpected.

[FromLori]

lol it is not unexpected but it is covered up as a rule the numbers are reported incorrectly and then you wait a week or so and someone digs up the real numbers.

[marstegreg]

What they are saying is that global creates jobs!?

[marstegreg]

What they are saying is that global WARMING creates jobs? (sorry, I skipped a word, originally)

[PSYCHO-FREEP]

This is Unexpected, that they would give out unexpected jobs report numbers that are unexpected.

With all the unexpected unexpecteds these days of course....

[Plutarch]

So, according to media spinners, this is how the BLS survey was conducted:

Labor Dept: "So, you are home today, are you unemployed"?

Person: "No, I'm just home because we were snowed out. I'll be back at work in a day or two."

Labor Dept: "Okay, I'll put you down as unemployed."

[Yo-Yo]

"For Friday’s employment report, we are projecting nonfarm payrolls to decline by 75,000,..."

"But we're also projecting that the workforce will decline by 85,000, so the unemployment rate will still drop..."

[Tallguy]

I guess the next step will be that the Feds will be ‘correcting’ or ‘adjusting’ for bad winter weather next year. Any excuse to fiddle with bad employment numbers.

[Calif Conservative]

Kindly be politically correct.

“Global Warming” is an incorrect term.

The correct term is “Climate Change.”

thanks

[surely_you_jest]

Right.

Colored => Negro => Afro-American => Black => African American => Person of Color

etc, etc.

I may have the sequence off, but really, who can keep up with the constant changes in nomenclature?

[AmishDude]

Ah, the excuse machine has racheted up.

[marstegreg]

Thanks for the correction! It worked better with “warming” in it.

OOpsie

[TruthConquers]

Extend and pretend contines ...

[jiggyboy]

In all seriousness, “global climate change” is now proving to have had a one-year shelf date as well — for 2010, the preferred term has been declared to be either “global climate instability”, or, per Thomas Friedman of the NYT, “global weirdness”.

[ding_dong_daddy_from_dumas]

I guess the next step will be that the Feds will be ‘correcting’ or ‘adjusting’ for bad winter weather next year. Any excuse to fiddle with bad employment numbers.

But they will ignore the fact that the weather made unemployment offices difficult or impossible to access, which made unemployment claims lower than they would have been with good weather.