Things are getting weird with Biden’s Department of Labor and the “data” it is pushing out, with a number of contrasting data points released by it as of late raising eyebrows and questions from those watching the financial situation, as the conflicting information makes no sense.
ZeroHedge, giving a few examples of the conflicting information released by that department, noted that:
“One day we get a contraction in PMI employment (both manufacturing and services), the other we get a major beat in employment. Then, one day the Household survey shows a plunge in employment (in fact, there has almost been no employment gain in the past 9 months) and a record in multiple jobholders and part-time workers, and the same day the Establishment Survey signals a spike in payrolls (mostly among waiters and bartenders). Or the day the JOLTS report shows an unexpected jump in job openings even as actual hiring slides to a two year low. Or the straw the breaks the latest trend in the labor market’s back, is when the jobs report finally cracks and shows the fewest jobs added in over a year, and yet initial jobless claims tumble and reverse all recent increases despite daily news of mass layoffs across all tech companies, as the relentless barrage of conflicting data out of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (which is the principal “fact-finding” agency for the Biden Administration and a core pillar of the Dept of Labor) just won’t stop, almost as if to make a very political point.”
So that’s weird. Or is it? Is it possible that the Department of Labor is full of propagandists presenting a glass-half-full view of reality when they’re able despite the oncoming flood of less-than-positive economic data? Or is it more likely that the economy really is just full of seeming contradictions? Or, playing to prejudices about government employees, is the Department of labor just incompetent?
Whatever the reason behind the weird data, it does look like some of what the Department of Labor is reporting is incorrect. Specifically, the data released by it on the job market appears to be incorrect, as UBS, a top investment bank based out of Switzerland, noticed and reported. ZeroHedge, reporting on what UBS found, reported that:
As UBS economist Pablo Villaneuva writes in a recent report by the bank’s Evidence Lab group, Job openings in the JOLTS survey have not declined much since the March peak. Indeed, the BLS reports that openings were only 12% below the March 2022 peak in November and remain 48% above the pre-pandemic, 2019 average. This slight move downward has, as we noted recently, led to only a small decline in the vacancies-to-unemployment ratio, from 1.99 in March to 1.74 in November, still well above the 2019 average of 1.19.
Of course, such a high level of job openings is alarming to the Fed for the simple reason that it means Powell has failed at his mission at cooling off what appears to be a red hot jobs market; no wonder the Fed Chair has frequently flagged the high level of job openings as a sign of ongoing strength in the labor market. The bottom line, as UBS notes, is that “the BLS measure, although it has declined, remains historically high.”
However, as in the abovementioned case of unexpectedly low jobless claims, there may be more here than meets the eye. According to Villanueva, “a range of other measures of job openings suggest normalization in the labor market—softening much more convincingly, often to pre-pandemic levels” – translation: whether on purpose or accidentally, the BLS is fabricating data. Also, the UBS economist flags, job openings are not a great indicator of current labor market conditions—they lagged the last two downturns in the labor market.
And that’s not all. Reporting on what UBS also found when examining the Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics data, ZeroHedge reported:
Well, as usual there is BLS “data” and everyone else… and as UBS cautions, other measures of openings tell a very different story: “Our UBS Evidence Lab data on job listings is weekly and more timely than the BLS series. The last datapoint is for the week of December 31. It shows openings down 30% from the March 2022 peak and only 25% higher than the 2019 average.”
[…]As the UBS economist puts it, “in short, other surveys of job openings generally suggest that the BLS measure may be overstating labor market tightness. One reason to think the accuracy of the JOLTS data may have declined is that the sample shrank noticeably at the start of the pandemic. In 2019, the survey response rate was 60%. In December, it was 30%.“
That news should come as a surprise to no one. The Philadelphia Fed, in its report on the Q2 2022 non-farm payroll data, said:
In the aggregate, 10,500 net new jobs were added during the period rather than the 1,121,500 jobs estimated by the sum of the states; the U.S. CES estimated net growth of 1,047,000 jobs for the period. Payroll jobs in the nation remained essentially flat from March through June 2022 after adjusting for QCEW data:
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Less than the 3.0 percent growth indicated by the sum of the states
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Less than the 2.8 percent growth indicated by the U.S. CES estimates
In other words, BLS was off by a whopping 1.12 million jobs…which doesn’t bode well for the economy.
Stock Market Could see a correction – Here’s what to do
By: Will Tanner. Follow me on Twitter @Will_Tanner_1
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