The February employment estimates are out and the downward revision to
January employment that I anticipated did not come to pass. In
fact, the January numbers were revised slightly upward.
The February employment estimates are out and the downward revision to
January employment that I anticipated did not come to pass. In
fact, the January numbers were revised slightly upward.
You better watch your step
You better watch your step toscano… first the housing market and now the jobs turning around…what the hell do you think your doing?
Well I’m pretty skeptical of
Well I’m pretty skeptical of the accuracy of the Jan and Feb numbers, for reasons described… though I do believe that the rate of yoy job losses is on the decline. (maybe just not to the extent estimated).
rich
I would agree with your
I would agree with your skepticism on the numbers. Though anecdotally I know of several engineering firms that have hired staff members in the ASIC and FPGA design fields since the beginning of the year.
census hiring perhaps? how
census hiring perhaps? how much house can you afford on $10/hour?
New round of census hiring to
New round of census hiring to begin in county
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2009/jun/29/1b29census211310-new-round-census-hiring-begin-cou/
“The U.S. Census Bureau plans to hire an additional 4,500 temporary employees in San Diego County in the coming months”
“We are going to begin another wave of massive hires, just as we did a few months ago,” said Mendoza, referring to the 1,300 temporary employees hired during the first months of the year. “
when I added income
when I added income information to the job loss numbers I believe I showed that just counting the number of jobs is misleading
putting the same emphasis on 14,000 retail jobs vs 14,000 professional services jobs is like comparing apples and palm trees
SDR – Hiring could well be on
SDR – Hiring could well be on the increase, it just doesn’t happen so abruptly.
4plex 1 – It wasn’t just census workers, for instance I showed in the first article that the retail sector to take one example exhibited a sharp 1-month improvement when taking seasonality into account. Same with the construction sector, most likely others as well but I didn’t check them all.
4plex 2 – How is it misleading? I am trying to analyze how many people are employed in the county — it’s hardly misleading to do so by measuring the number of people with jobs.
Analyzing the income impact is a completely separate analysis and maybe one I will get into if I get some time (with props to you if I do), but it doesn’t invalidate the analysis of how many people have jobs.
Rich
Chart appears to be a year
Chart appears to be a year over year comparison chart so it’s showing the second derivative. If you look at last January and February there was a significant ramp up in YoY job losses so one would expect the YoY job losses to start dropping as the YoY comparison gets easier. For example the YoY comparison in June of this year should be at the 0 line if unemployment remains somewhat constant. Maybe I’m missing something in the chart but it seems that unemployment is bad but stabilized so this particular chart series should head up towards the 0 line in the next 6-12 months unless we double dip.
In Biotech I’ve noticed a lot
In Biotech I’ve noticed a lot more job postings since the new year than there were last fall. I suspect a lot of companies that have needed people for a while decided that the new year was when they’d finally start looking and hiring.
It’s still a pretty crappy job market, but it’s significantly less bad than it was. I guess the other thing to bear in mind when looking at YOY numbers is we’re now a year out from when the job loss poo started to really hit the fan. Unfortunately it also looks like we’re still a good 4 months or so from positive job growth.
perhaps I am reading too much
perhaps I am reading too much into the title of this article, “Shrinking Job Losses Streak Continues”
after reading the title and then reading the article I found myself, like the little old lady in the Wendy’s commercials, asking, “Where’s the beef?”
perhaps the title is intended to be tongue-in-cheek
the ‘beef’ appears to be:
– seasonally adjusted retail jobs *
– temporary census workers
– education sector jobs
* as a poster on this board pointed out last year, if you torture the numbers enough they will tell you anything you want to hear
No, of course it’s not tongue
No, of course it’s not tongue in cheek. As to your points:
– There are no seasonal adjustments here so I don’t even know what you are talking about with that one.
– How big an impact are census workers having? Can you provide data? It surely isn’t all that much on the scale of our whole economy.
– What, education sector jobs aren’t jobs?
I’ve expressed great skepticism at the rapid shrinkage in yoy decreases. At the same time, unless you think this data is all completely made up (in which case why even bother to read the artilce), it is clear that yoy job losses have been declining for the better part of a year.
So I don’t understand the issue with the title of the article. Are you trying to say that yoy job losses are NOT declining from their mid-09 levels? Can you provide any evidence to this effect?
rich
“Submitted by Rich Toscano on
“Submitted by Rich Toscano on March 30, 2010 – 8:47am.
4plex 1 – It wasn’t just census workers, for instance I showed in the first article that the retail sector to take one example exhibited a sharp 1-month improvement when taking seasonality into account. Same with the construction sector, most likely others as well but I didn’t check them all.”
“when taking seasonality into account”
~
I provided a like to the article documenting census jobs – 1300 so far with another 4500 coming
Acknowledging the reality
Acknowledging the reality that there are seasonal patterns to job changes, and accounting for them, is not the same as “seasonal adjustment.” Seasonal adjustment is a term that means something specific; it means changing a given months’ data based on typical seasonal patterns. If you go back and read what I was actually talking about in the first article, it has nothing to do with seasonal adjustments.
As for the census workers, 1,300 is a drop in the bucket compared to this change (even if this change is overstated as I have voice my suspicion that it is): “February’s year-over-year decline was estimated at 44,600 jobs, versus… 83,300 jobs lost between July 2008 and July 2009.”
Maybe I don’t understand your point here. It sure sounded like your original point was that it was incorrect to describe the situation as yoy job losses continuing to shrink… but it was not incorrect and you haven’t even come close to demonstrating that it is. Am I just completely missing your point?
Rich
Don’t YOY numbers sort of
Don’t YOY numbers sort of already factor out seasonal adjustments? Isn’t that part of the point of looking at YOY rather than month-to-month employment figures?