Nonfarm Payroll Employment: The Movie

by: Menzie Chinn April 04, 2008    

Menzie Chinn

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As informative as the nonfarm payroll employment numbers were, of even more interest to me are the revisions. Figure 1 depicts payroll employment estimates from the January (blue), February (red) and March (green) releases.

Figure 1: Nonfarm Payroll Employment, in thousands, seasonally adjusted. Source: BLS, various releases, via St. Louis Fed FRED II.

Note that while the household employment figures were still rising in March 2008, this series was also rising in as of 2001M03 (the beginning of the previous NBER-defined recession).

More discussion here: [1], Calculated Risk, Angry Bear, Big Picture, WSJ RealTime Economics.

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This article has 5 comments:

  •  
    Apr 05 09:35 AM
    The y/y change in Service employment ex Health & Education
    is about to fall from a cliff.
    Reply | Link to Comment
  •  
    Apr 05 10:44 AM
    I can think of several conclusions from the chart shown. Why doesn't the author share several he thinks are important with us?
    Reply | Link to Comment
  •  
    Apr 05 11:50 AM
    You should have given us your conclusions, poor writing for sure. The BLS added 142,000 phantom birth-death jobs, even 28,000 in construction! They are still adding phantom jobs proportionally to a year ago, upped for population, in their continued con-job on America. 16,000 government jobs should be added back in also.
    www.bls.gov/web/cesbd....
    I am still calling for a complete investigation of the BLS, starting with the Commissioner who Bush appointed last year from his own White House Economic Council.
    Adding back in these bogus jobs= LOSS OF 238,000 JOBS. To round it , it's at least a loss of 200K.
    Reply | Link to Comment
  •  
    Apr 05 12:11 PM
    OK- here's the March 2007 birth-death numbers, the BLS added 1,000 more construction jobs (28,000) to this report than a year ago! They added 128,000 jobs in March 2007, when the economy was stronger and unemployment weekly claims were lower. look>
    www.bls.gov/ces/cesbdh...
    Reply | Link to Comment
  •  
    Apr 05 12:15 PM
    Despite these terrible implications the market the market is blasting higher. Do you think this situation smacks of manipulation? I do.
    Reply | Link to Comment
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