Since it is the first Friday of the month, the government released the employment report today for the previous month. It was not good. After a string of months during which the economy created 200,000 or more jobs, there were only 120,000 jobs created by the private sector. The so-called experts were predicting much higher numbers. Even the numbers for the prior two months were revised lower.
So what does this mean? Given that all of these numbers are based upon surveys which have been manipulated in the past, today's figures are either fair, meaningless or ominous depending on you point of view. If you are an apologist for president Obama (like much of the press), the figures show "continued growth"! Hooray! The truth is that given expectations, these numbers indicate a slow down in growth in the economy. After the bounce back last quarter from the terrible numbers of the first three months of the year, the hope was that the economy had finally ignited and would achieve sustained growth. These numbers undermine that thesis in a big way. If you consider these numbers to be gross approximations because of surveys underlie the figures, then you cannot get too excited by any month's figures. The results could just be a statistical anomaly. But if you are someone who suspects that the manipulation of the underlying data by the government is continuing in order to make things look better than they actually are, then the results today are ominous. After all, if the manipulations resulted in a release of figure during prime election season that show the economy slowing down in a major way, then you have to wonder just how bad the real numbers are.
For my part, I think the numbers are somewhere between fair and meaningless. The one thing that I think we can all agree upon, however, is that today's figures are NOT GOOD.
So what does this mean? Given that all of these numbers are based upon surveys which have been manipulated in the past, today's figures are either fair, meaningless or ominous depending on you point of view. If you are an apologist for president Obama (like much of the press), the figures show "continued growth"! Hooray! The truth is that given expectations, these numbers indicate a slow down in growth in the economy. After the bounce back last quarter from the terrible numbers of the first three months of the year, the hope was that the economy had finally ignited and would achieve sustained growth. These numbers undermine that thesis in a big way. If you consider these numbers to be gross approximations because of surveys underlie the figures, then you cannot get too excited by any month's figures. The results could just be a statistical anomaly. But if you are someone who suspects that the manipulation of the underlying data by the government is continuing in order to make things look better than they actually are, then the results today are ominous. After all, if the manipulations resulted in a release of figure during prime election season that show the economy slowing down in a major way, then you have to wonder just how bad the real numbers are.
For my part, I think the numbers are somewhere between fair and meaningless. The one thing that I think we can all agree upon, however, is that today's figures are NOT GOOD.
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