Saturday, October 8, 2022

Second thoughts on the September employment data -- numbers are very suspicious

In my first short analysis yesterday, I noted that September 2022 aw payroll employment data were much worse than in September 2021.

Today I am reporting that adjusted September 2022 payroll employment data have very suspicious seasonal adjustments, and should be completely ignored.

I prefer to compare raw data for one month with the same month in the prior year:

September 2021
Raw data:    +704,000 new payroll jobs
Reported adjusted data:  +194,000 new payroll jobs

September 2022
Raw data:   +431,000 new payroll jobs
Reported adjusted data:  +263,000 new payroll jobs

My analysis:
If +704,000 new jobs in September 2021 resulted in +194,000 new jobs reported to the general public, then it makes no sense to me that only +431,000 new jobs in September 2022
(39% fewer than the +704,000 in September 2021), resulted in +263,000 new jobs being reported to the general public (36% more jobs than the +194,000 reported in September 2021) .

Raw Data Down -39% in September (2022 vs. 2021)
But Adjusted Data Up +36% (2022 vs. 2021)?
That makes no sense!

The seasonal adjustments for September 2022 must have been very different than the seasonal adjustments for September 2021.

I see no logical reason for such large differences in seasonal adjustments from year to year.  Therefore, I must dismiss the reported adjusted payroll numbers as being worthless.

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