On May 10, 2009, at 3:25 PM, Sandwichman wrote:
May BLS Non-farm payroll employment decline: -775,000 to -835,000
jobs lost.
http://econospeak.blogspot.com/2009/05/prediction.html
Those are some original techniques you're using there, Comrade Sandwich.
You say:
Another thing I noticed is that seasonally unadjusted January to
June employment numbers consistently display a steady slope, with
the seasonally-adjusted employment figures intersecting that line at
April. So far this year, the January to April segment of that line
has been flat, with a minor dip down in February and March followed
by a small bounce in April. That small bounce might reflect the
62,000 census workers plus the residual unadjusted seasonal
variation from the birth/death model.
The BLS has been working on the birth/death model for a long time, and
it works pretty well. If you think you've discovered a problem with
it, then maybe you should let them know.
But I don't get your point at all about the slope of the unadjusted
numbers. January is normally a month of heavy layoffs, so the SA takes
out almost 3 million jobs that month at current employment levels. Feb-
June are normally months when SA adds jobs - a little over 3 million
all together. Over the course of a year, the seasonal factors cancel
out. But if you look at the pattern for the first half of the year
alone, you might find some sort of slope.
For example, if unadjusted employment were unchanged at April's NSA
level of 132.295 million, you'd get the following changes after SA (in
thousands):
Jan +2,870
Feb -649
Mar -692
Apr -734
May -751
Jun -402
Jul +1,218
Aug -123
Sep -423
Oct -724
Nov +8
Dec +269
Actual monthly changes, so far this year:
SA NSA
Jan -741 -3,615
Feb -681 - 164
Mar -699 - 84
Apr -539 + 241
----- ------
tot -2,660 -3,622
How does this suggest anything about what might happen in May?
Doug
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