Jobs Increase by 136,000; Unemployment Rate Holds at 9.7%; BLS Refused To Address My Question On Seasonality; Part-Time Work up by 738,000 in 2 Months
by ilene - April 2nd, 2010 2:06 pm
Jobs Increase by 136,000; Unemployment Rate Holds at 9.7%; BLS Refused To Address My Question On Seasonality; Part-Time Work up by 738,000 in 2 Months
Courtesy of Mish
This morning the BLS reported an increase of 136,000 jobs. Headline unemployment was unchanged at 9.7%. Before diving into the numbers let’s look at a couple questions from a live Q&A session. The BLS took questions in advance.
Seasonality Question Unanswered
I asked the BLS a question regarding increasing amplitude in seasonal adjustments twice, once early in the day yesterday and once again today right at the beginning of the session. The BLS did not answer it.
The exact question I submitted is in the addendum to BLS Live Question and Answer Session on Friday, April 2nd
The BLS had plenty of time to answer or at least email me. They did neither.
From the live-chat with the BLS here are a few questions they did answer.
From Madeline: Is there an estimate for how many census workers will be hired for the current census and when those hires will occur? Are these employees full, or part-time? How does the BLS treat these employees? Are they counted as "regular" employees?
Laura Kelter (BLS-CES):
Madeline, thanks for your questions. Current information on the census intermittent worker impact on CES estimates can be found at Census 2010 temporary and intermittent workers and Federal government employment. To be considered employed in the CES survey, workers need to receive pay for any time during their pay period including the 12th of the month. Workers getting paid for just one hour would be considered employed. The CES survey cannot distinguish between full- and part-time workers.
From Bill: Hi. The headline payroll number is seasonally adjusted, and the hiring for the 2010 Census is NSA. How would you suggest adjusting for the 2010 Census hiring to determine the underlying trend (not counting the snow storms!)?
Michele Walker (BLS-CES):
Thanks for your question Bill. There is an adjustment made for the 2010 Census. Before seasonally adjusting the estimates, BLS makes a special modification so that the Census workers do not influence the calculation of the seasonal factors. Specifically, BLS subtracts the Census workers from the not-seasonally adjusted estimates before running seasonal adjustment using X-12. After the estimates have been seasonally adjusted, BLS adds the Census workers to the seasonally adjusted totals. Therefore,…