Did the Department Of Labor Miss 350,000 jobs in its tally of November employment? | Business

A worker at Best Buy helps shoppers get carts on Black Friday (photo: Shannon Stapleton/REUTERS)

We might need a jobs recount.

The employment numbers came out on Friday morning for November and they were far lower than people were hoping for. But here’s the problem: The employment picture might not be as disappointing as the number the Department of Labor reported. Why’s that? The Labor Department failed to count just over 350,000 jobs in its final tally. Include those jobs into the mix, and the economy actually added nearly 400,000 jobs in the month of November. So why did November become such a downer? Here’s why:

It all has to do with the retail sector. And the WSJ has a good take on this on their economics blog. Retail was one of the biggest negative surprises in the November jobs report. You would expect stores to have hired big in November, getting ready for the holiday season. And indeed all reports are that Black Friday and Cyber Monday were very strong for retailers. Yet, according to Labor Department’s final numbers, not only did the retail sector not add jobs in November, stores fired workers–28,000 of them. Really?

No, not really. In reality, the retail sector added just over 300,000 new hires in the month of November. But the Labor Department didn’t count those hires. That’s because the Labor Department’s final number of employment is seasonally adjusted. And since the retail sector disproportionately adds more workers this time of the year than the other 10 months, the Labor Department adjusts down the sector’s employment numbers in November and December. So retail employment gets over counted in January and February when hiring is slow, and undercounted in November and December. The reason is to smooth the numbers, but it also distorts, particularly at times like these when the economy is hopefully at an inflection point. The result: In the Labor Department’s final count, 350,000 retail jobs got excluded.

And that may make sense. Many of those jobs are seasonal and temporary. But if the retail sector continues to do well this holiday season, some stores may keep a good number of those employees. If so, November’s disappointing job report might be just be setting the economy up for a surprisingly strong employment number for January.

http://stephenpoo.wordpress.com stephenpoo

Wow I feel somewhat better and can peek out of my shell.
But your saying because of not understanding this report the Market went down and Gold went up?
There’s going to be a lot of upset people.
Stephen Gandel

Actually, I would bet the market generally gets that this report looks worse than it really is. That’s why the Dow is only down slightly today. If the report was really bad news, the Dow would have been down huge.
http://stephenpoo.wordpress.com stephenpoo

Stephen looks like you called that right, the gold buyers are still going though
,on to the next worry.
geaugailluminati

actually, most of the retail hiring took place in october this year, so last months numbers should have been accordingly lower…mish covers it: http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2010/12/explaining-last-months-jobs-upside.html
waltwriston

Historically gold always rallies in December esp, towards the end, and if Steven is right than we’ll have a great “January Effect” in the stock market.
http://michaeltibbsjr.wordpress.com michaeltibbsjr

This article attempts to put lipstick on a pig, The economy is BAD.
We need more good paying jobs, not just any job to help lower the unemployment figures. REAL jobs, that pay REAL money. So we can all go out and buy 3D flat screen TV’s, and BlueRay players, and new cars, etc… And not minimum wage jobs that require you work a second job, just to make ends meet.

We need to level the playing field so that manufacturers will come back to America again. The East has had a “free ride” long enough.
bojimbo26

Massage the figures ; it won`t look so bad .
http://dayingdayang.wordpress.com dayingdayang

That is a huge number to not have included. Oh well truth and facts always prevails.

Good job President Obama, your hard work is showing. Our economy is finally coming back from George Bush’s failed Presidency, with no help from the Republican party.
hgerhard

The way government agencies figure the unemployment rate has always been a little bizarre. It would probably be better to just report the raw numbers – without the seasonal adjustments – and economists and policy makers could take fluctuations into account. The same distortions occurred with the temporary workforce for the U.S. census. These jobs should be counted, but identified as temporary. A true accounting of the workforce month by month would avoid both artificial highs and lows being interpreted as economic trends.
bobleeswagger308

Sorry gang, but even if the count is off, by 350,000, and it’s not, in February when the seasonals, part timers, and temps are no lommnger employed, it will just look worse, anyway. And this holiday season started and will finish like the last two, and will probably be the worst of the litter.