Why Are US Jobs Report Estimates Inflated?
Estimated number of jobs added in the USA has been revised downward in 10 of the last 11 months
The Bureau of Labor Statistics jobs report gets a lot of publicity, and for good reason. The reports are released to give people - and policymakers, investors, etc. - an idea of how well the employment market is doing. However, in 2023, there seems to be a major issue.
There’s something wrong with previous U.S. jobs reports.
The government quietly erased 439,000 jobs through November 2023, a closer look at the numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows.
That means its initial jobs results were inflated by 439,000 positions, and the job market is not as healthy as the government suggests.
And a Twitter (sorry, X) thread has a nice graph. Here is a link to the full thread, which is also interesting. In ten of the last eleven months, the number reported to the public was overstated and had to be revised downward.
So why is this happening? In this short (80 second) video below, I discuss three possible reasons:
Statistical variance
Bad/biased statistical techniques
Government officials intentionally manipulating numbers to make things seem more positive
I don’t know which of the reasons is the cause, but I think it is one (or more) of the three - question for readers, can anyone think of other possibilities?