Unemployment

John Williams, who runs the great Shadow Government Statistics site, presents the true numbers behind today's "seriously flawed BLS payroll reporting." The upside bias coming out of the BLS is almost scandalous: one wonders how much "push from above" there is to concoct these numbers.

Initial jobless claims: upward revision for February to 657K, March survey: 650K, actual 669K

Continuing claims: upward revision for February to 5567K, March survey: 5590K, actual 5728K

Initial jobless claims: upward revision for February to 657K, March survey: 650K, actual 669K

Continuing claims: upward revision for February to 5567K, March survey: 5590K, actual 5728K

Reader Michael points out an interesting observation on the lagging versus coincident nature of unemployment as an indicator of economic health. His thoughts below:

I am skeptical of a lot of the "good news", and note that a recent mini-bounce in the Conference Board Leading Indicator was only due to the expansion in the money supply; all other variables were negative. I also think Rosenberg is on the right track in terms of higher than expected savings rates, and the over-extrapolation of recent housing and production data.

Reader Michael points out an interesting observation on the lagging versus coincident nature of unemployment as an indicator of economic health. His thoughts below:

I am skeptical of a lot of the "good news", and note that a recent mini-bounce in the Conference Board Leading Indicator was only due to the expansion in the money supply; all other variables were negative. I also think Rosenberg is on the right track in terms of higher than expected savings rates, and the over-extrapolation of recent housing and production data.

12.5 million people unemployed. 731k people have given up looking for work.

Nonfarm payrolls -651k.

Huge downward January payroll revisions: -655k versus prior indicated at -598k.

4.4 million jobs lost since December 2007.

Apparently a downward surprise of 0.2% in unemployment was terrific based on futures.

Despite the schizo market action yet again (market is up because yen is down, yen is down because market is up), we wanted to go back to today's deplorable unemployment number.

Despite the schizo market action yet again (market is up because yen is down, yen is down because market is up), we wanted to go back to today's deplorable unemployment number.

Click this... Very interesting info on how the gov't is manipulating data as usual.

(thanks Paul)

*NEW YORK STATE LABOR DEPARTMENT PRESENTS DATA IN RELEASE
*NEW YORK STATE LOST 100,000 JOBS IN LAST 3 MONTHS OF 2008
*NEW YORK STATE UNEMPLOYMENT RISES TO 7% IN DECEMBER :NYC US
*NEW YORK JOBLESS AT HIGHEST SINCE JUNE 1994, STATE REPORTS