Even though pension numbers are iffy, the employment numbers are calculated using a relatively simple sample survey. One of the things that they indicate is that even though (in recent months) the over-all unemployment rate has fallen, so has employment. A lot of people have left the labor force (those with jobs + those actively seeking employment). In fact, some have gone back to college. Others are "discouraged workers".
For example, employment by businesses has fallen from 132,135 thousand in Sept. 2001 to 131,151 thousand in Sept. 2002 (not seasonally adjusted). (This is from http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t11.htm.) Over the same period, the unemployment rate including discouraged workers rose from 4.9 to 5.6 percent (n.s.a.) (From: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t08.htm.)
The most common view I've seen is that the stats indicate that even if we avoid the second dip of the Dubya recession, the economy is growing too slowly to provide enough jobs to avoid rising unemployment -- or constant high unemployment.
------------------------
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
> >Employment has held up fairly well. Where are the new jobs
> coming from to
> >balance off the large layoffs in the news?
> >--
> >Michael Perelman
>
>
> Frankly, I would be skeptical about labor statistics at this point
> considering all of the garbage that came down the pike about
> corporate
> profitability in the 1990s. We have a tendency to put a halo
> around data
> coming from "impartial" government sources, but when you
> really get down to
> it, the top directors of such agencies come from the same
> class that made
> Enron possible.
>
> From Bureau of Labor Statistics website:
>
> Kathleen P. Utgoff Commissioner*
>
> ---
>
> The Houston Chronicle, June 29, 1995
>
> Firms must disclose underfunded pensions
>
> Large companies that do not have enough money in their
> pension plans to pay
> promised benefits must send their workers letters this year
> disclosing the
> shortfall and the potential consequences under a new federal rule.
>
> (clip)
>
> The need for many of the letters was questioned by Kathleen
> P. Utgoff*, who
> was the agency's executive director during President Ronald
> Reagan's second
> term.
>
> "Most pension plans are very healthy, but that was true a
> year ago,'' said
> Utgoff, an economist who represents some of the large
> companies on the list.
>
> She said many healthy pension plans appear underfunded
> because the agency
> "uses the wrong interest rate and the wrong mortality table. ''
>
> Utgoff contends that tables used by other government agencies
> are more
> reliable. Such tables would produce more favorable results
> for many large
> companies in projecting their pension liabilities.
>
>
>
> Louis Proyect
> www.marxmail.org
>
>
