November 05, 2004

Feds claiming 337,000 jobs created since July. What do you make of this? Genuine improvement in the economy or bad metrics? It seems 98% of my household goods are now made in China. If these are indeed mostly service jobs, then by analogy, how can business be booming at hot dog stands outside an auto manufacturing plant that has been bleeding jobs?
posted by rolypolyman 20 years ago
  • If it was crap designed to boost morale, why would they wait until *after* the election to announce it?
  • I'm also not clear on if this counts job losses (i.e. I "won" $10 at Vegas but lost $90 in the process, thus I made $10).
  • here's a grain of salt you might want to take with those numbers.
  • Comparative advantage.
  • i found these numbers very interesting, from exit polls: HAS ANYONE IN HOUSEHOLD LOST A JOB? Yes (33%) No (67%) HAVE YOU LOST A JOB? Yes (17%) No (83%) i hate to say it, but apparently, the whole "jobs" issue just doesn't resonate because it doesn't touch many folks' lives directly.
  • My initial thought would be that a significant number of those jobs would be in construction in Florida after three hurricanes, but I could be wrong.
  • i found these numbers very interesting, from exit polls Of that same sample, I'd love to see what the answers to this would have been like: "Are you dissatisfied with your job, but in fear of losing it through offshoring or downsizing?"
  • yeah, really, el_h. that's the problem with the whole "moral values" answer. the majority of people voted on "moral values," but every person has a totally different definition of what that means. the polls didn't go deep enough.
  • because they're counting burger flipping jobs as "service" jobs...
  • the majority of people voted on "moral values," but every person has a totally different definition of what that means. Sadly, yes. And so now in many U.S. states besides just Virginia, there are laws that:
    could undermine contracts between unmarried people of the same sex that govern both personal and business arrangements, such as real estate holdings, prenuptial agreements and business partnerships.
    I wonder how many of those who voted for this supposedly-"moral" garbage realize what they were voting for. And which is worse, that they didn't know? Or that they knew and didn't care?
  • If it was crap designed to boost morale, why would they wait until *after* the election to announce it? Perhaps because of the 51/49 split on the vote?
  • Perhaps because of the 51/49 split on the vote? I'm not sure I follow. If the numbers were just cooked up, if they were to help Bush (assuming that would be the impetus behind cooked numbers) they'd have to be announced before the election. Once the election is won, regardless of the margin, the impetus to cook the numbers is gone (Bush doesn't need this month's employment numbers to help him win anymore). The people who voted for Bush don't need employment figures to reinforce the idea that they made the right decision (they already believe it) and the people who voted against Bush, I would guess, voted against him for reasons other than a few hundred thousand new jobs. I don't put this administration (or any administration, for that matter) past tweaking the books, but I trust that they'd do so for a decent reason.
  • It just occurred to me -- what if "good news" was intended to be rolled out at this point to help dampen turmoil over the inevitable electronic voting irregularities? I don't know if this is a proper application of Occam's Razor though.
  • Hasn't it been pretty standard that a set of numbers like this will be released, and then it'll get revised downward to something that more closely reflects reality?
  • The link is dead but here's the story at yahoo and it seems to be saying the 337,000 jobs were created in October alone, yet unemployment still rose .1% -- I swear I'll never understand this stuff. I was under the impression that, due to population growth and what not, the country had to create something like 100,000(?) new jobs every month just to break even. Do the figures they release take things like that into account? Or, if we gain 105,000 new jobs one month, are we really only "gaining" 5,000?
  • angry bear is a good site for economic info, scroll down for their take on the job situation.
  • Who trusts any information that is issued by the U.S. government?
  • One way to create jobs is to send National Guardsmen out of the country indefinitely so their regular employers must fill those positions.
  • If the numbers were just cooked up, if they were to help Bush (assuming that would be the impetus behind cooked numbers) they'd have to be announced before the election The numbers aren't to help Bush win, they are to help him smooth over his so-called "victory" with undecideds who voted for Kerry.
  • his so-called "victory" I don't understand this.
  • wage: Population growth in the US requires in 300,000 - 400,000 jobs be created per month, not 100,000.