Today’s Jobs Report

The government just reported that the economy lost 17,000 jobs last month. This was the first decline in employment since 2003. The unemployment rate ticked down to 4.9% from 5.0%, but looking at the raw numbers, it really only dropped from 4.75% to 4.25%.
It also looks like the BLS undated all the non-farm payroll numbers going back to 1990. I get a little annoyed seeing the government completely revised numbers from nearly 20 years ago. This revision could have happen earlier but it’s the first I’ve seen of it. Not surprisingly, payrolls weren’t as strong as previously believed. Here’s a look at the old and new numbers:

On the chart, the gaps looks small, but don’t let that fool you. There are about 400,000 jobs less than previously thought.
Here’s a look at the number of jobs as a percent of the population. The regular unemployment rate only counts people in the labor force.

Posted by Eddy Elfenbein on February 1st, 2008 at 9:40 am

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