This is one reason why I do not pay attention to government statistics. It is a quote from John Mauldin's weekly (free) economic newsletter. If you don't subscribe, you should because he's one of the more balanced writer's around...and did I mention it was free?
In this part of the letter he is addressing the Bureau of Labor Statistics report on unemployment. You can draw your own conclusion.
Once Again, the BLS Numbers Paint a False Picture
I almost get tired of writing this each month, but it is important, and I will do it quickly. The unemployment number from the BLS last week showed a loss of 62,000 jobs. Private sector jobs were off by 91,000, with the government showing growth of 29,000.
But once again, the birth/death ratio of estimated new jobs was 177,000. As The Liscio Report noted: "... without the b/d's contribution, private employment would have been down by something like 268,000. It added 29,000 [new jobs] to construction, 22,000 to professional and business services, and 86,000 to leisure and hospitality. Given the weakness of the economy and the crunchiness of credit, we doubt that there are enough startups around to match these imputations."
Revisions to the prior two months were a negative 52,000. When they do the final numbers a few years from now, we will find that the revisions will be in the hundreds of thousands for the first half of the year. We have now had five consecutive months of downward revisions, which is typical of recessions.
Unemployment held steady at 5.5%, but that masks an underlying and growing problem. There has been a huge increase in the number of people working "part-time for economic reasons" and a large number of people who are discouraged and not looking for a job but would like one. These two categories are not counted as unemployed. If you add them into the equation, the unemployment or underemployment number goes to 10.3%! (per Greg Weldon)
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